You probably know that milk is a source of calcium, but if you're lactose intolerant, drinking milk gives you terrible gas cramps, diarrhea and other uncomfortable digestive symptoms. If you're worried that supplemental calcium may be milk-derived and might also give you symptoms, you needn't be concerned -- most calcium is perfectly safe.
Calcium
The mineral calcium is important to your skeletal system, as it's part of the inorganic matrix of bone. However, you need calcium for more than just your skeleton. It's also a critical mineral for cellular communication and plays major roles in muscular contraction. Your muscles can't flex -- and your heart can't beat -- without sufficient calcium in your blood. You can get calcium from foods like dairy and spinach, but you can also take supplements.
Lactose Intolerance
Lactose intolerance is an inability to digest lactose, the sugar in milk and other dairy products. To absorb the components of lactose and use them for energy, you have to break lactose down with the digestive enzyme lactase. If you don't produce enough lactase, you can't break down the sugar and it passes into your large intestine, where bacteria use it for energy. They produce large quantities of gas in the process, resulting in your symptoms, according to Drs. Reginald Garrett and Charles Grisham in their book "Biochemistry."
Calcium Supplements
You need 1,000 mg of calcium each day, according to the Red Cedar Medical Center, part of the Mayo Health System. If you're younger than 25, your needs are even higher, as they are if you're female and older than 50 or male and older than 64. While lactose intolerance doesn't necessarily mean you need calcium supplements, you may wish to take a supplement if you can't consume dairy. Few calcium supplements contain lactose; even calcium lactate, which sounds similar, isn't lactose-based.
Safe Supplements
There are many safe options for calcium supplements. Calcium carbonate is generally the least expensive and usually comes from oyster shells. You can also take calcium citrate or calcium phosphate, both of which are also common in drug and health food stores. Read the ingredients on calcium supplements before you use them. If they contain lactose, the label will specifically say so. There's no lactose included in any of the raw calcium salts, so it would have to be added.
References
- "Biochemistry"; Reginald Garrett, Ph.D. and Charles Grisham, Ph.D.; 2007
- Red Cedar Medical Center: Calcium
