Vegan for Life: Everything You Need to Know to Be Healthy on a Plant-based Diet

by Jack Norris

Calcium is different from other nutrients in that it isn’t associated with an acute deficiency disease. With most nutrients, if your intake is too low, you’ll get sick. That’s not true for calcium because levels in the blood are very tightly controlled. Even a small change in those levels can be life-threatening, so the body utilizes stored calcium in the bone plus the filtering system of the kidneys to keep calcium concentrations within strict boundaries. You can’t ascertain calcium status by measuring blood levels of this mineral because those levels are always the same. But while a low calcium diet doesn’t cause an acute nutritional deficiency, a chronically low intake can raise the risk for osteoporosis later in life.