Your body needs a variety of nutrients in order to remain healthy and functional. Some of these nutrients -- called the macronutrients -- provide energy to your cells. Carbohydrates, proteins and fats are all considered macronutrients. Micronutrients, which include vitamins and minerals like calcium, don't provide energy. They do, however, serve important biological roles. Calcium citrate and calcium carbonate are two forms of dietary calcium.
Calcium
You need calcium in your body for many reasons, explains Dr. Lauralee Sherwood in her book "Human Physiology." You're probably aware that calcium is a constituent of bone, and you need it to maintain the integrity of your skeletal system. You also need calcium, however, to regulate your heartbeat and allow muscular contraction. The body works hard to maintain a steady concentration of calcium in the blood; if you're calcium deficient, your cells will extract calcium from the skeleton into the bloodstream, which results in osteoporosis and skeletal weakening.
Calcium in Food and Supplements
To make sure you have adequate calcium in your body, you need calcium in your diet. MayoClinic.com explains that men younger than 71 and women younger than 51 need 1,000 mg of calcium each day. You can obtain the calcium from dietary sources like dairy products and leafy greens. Alternately, you can use a calcium supplement. There are many different calcium supplements available; they each consist of a calcium salt, which is a positively charged particle of calcium paired with a negatively charged particle of variable identity. Calcium citrate and calcium carbonate are examples of calcium salts.
Calcium Citrate
Calcium citrate consists of calcium paired with negatively charged citrate particles. The identity of the negative particles in a calcium salt doesn't affect the activity of the calcium in your body, but it does affect the ability of the body to absorb the calcium. Calcium citrate salts are quite soluble, meaning that when you take calcium citrate pills, they dissolve well in the stomach and intestine. You can therefore absorb most of the calcium from the supplements. Unfortunately, because calcium citrate is more expensive to produce than some other sources of supplemental calcium, these pills tend to be among the more expensive to purchase.
Calcium Carbonate
Like calcium citrate, calcium carbonate is a calcium salt that you can use to supplement your dietary calcium. Calcium carbonate is quite abundant in nature -- oyster shells are one common source of calcium carbonate for pills -- and is therefore inexpensive to purchase. Calcium carbonate has the added advantage of being an antacid -- this is due to the carbonate particle, not the calcium -- so over-the-counter heartburn aids like Tums and Rolaids often contain calcium carbonate. If you're truly concerned about calcium deficiency, however, calcium carbonate is not the best source of dietary calcium, because it's not as well absorbed as other sources.
References
- "Human Physiology"; Lauralee Sherwood, Ph.D.; 2004
- MayoClinic.com: Calcium
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