Dietary fat and calcim in bones

Carla Asks in Category Nutrition 101:

How is fat and calcuim in bones linked? Can we just eliminate fat from the diet to be more healthy?

Carla,

Let us use an extreme example to review this relationship.

Anorexics tend to DELIBERATELY avoid fatty foods. Milk and cheese are top examples of fatty foods
they avoid, but these are also PRIMARY sources of calcium. Calcium is one of those vitamins that we
need to get regularly from food.

Whenever the body is deprived of calories, it cannibalizes itself - it eats away at fat cells, and
eventually, muscle tissue. In the same way, if the body is deprived of calcium sources such as milk
and cheese, the body cannibalizes itself by leeching calcium from the bones and teeth. Calcium
leeching from the bones leads to early onset of osteoporosis.

However, as far as I am aware, it is not the FAT itself that is linked to calcium in bones, but the fact
that anyone trying to lose weight or to deliberately reduce their intake of fat, is likely to avoid food
choices that are also likely to contribute to our calcium needs.

Fat cells serve 2 purposes: The essential fat that surrounds our vital organs, heart, lungs, brain,
cushion, insulate and is required for basic survival. Loss of this fat can result in death. The other fat,
the superficial, nonessential fat is energy storage. In other words, the excess food (fuel) unused is
stored for later use.

Now fat does have nutritional value. Fat is necessary to dissovle fat soluble vitamins that we get from
various foods. Failure to have fat in the diet is failure to access these vitamins. That is why anorexics
usually look so ill. The one thing they deliberately eliminate from their nutrition is fat, and it translates
into an emaciated appearance. The hair looks limp (hair needs oil), the nails get brittle (nails need oil),
the skin looks dry (the skin needs oil).

Yours

Trudy Beerman

Health Coach

www.healthcoachplus.com