Home > Blogs > Calcium Needed to Keep Your Knee Healthy

Calcium Needed to Keep Your Knee Healthy

Calcium is an important mineral and a familiar nutrient that is involved in many vital functions. The mineral calcium helps muscles, nerves, and cells work normally. Although its role has been advocated in bone and joint health, it serves many other potential functions. If you are worried about how to keep your knees healthy and strong? Here are some of its important functions listed below:

Role of Calcium in Bone health

Bones are the main storage site of calcium in the body. Calcium cannot be produced by the body. Only the food consumed and dietary supplements provide the body with the calcium it needs. The bones may become weak or may not develop normally if the body does not get enough calcium from the diet or if the body does not absorb enough calcium.

Old bone is continually resorbed and new bone is continuously created in the bones. All of the bone in our body needs to regenerate every ten years or so. Because of this, adults should also pay attention to their bone health, not only developing children.

Benefits of Calcium in Bones and Joints

Calcium is a vital mineral for building bone and keeps the bone strong and healthy.
It helps slow down the pace of bone loss.
It is found to be effective in reducing pain and inflammation in the joint, especially the knee joint.
Calcium is also an essential mineral that helps build the health and functioning of nerves and muscle tissues.
Calcium supplement after Total Knee Replacement also helps recover early from knee replacement surgery.

Thus taking the recommended amount of calcium at an early age can prevent one from undergoing a partial knee replacement surgery or a total knee replacement surgery .

Our body builds bone faster during early stages of life. But as we age, the production of the bone slows down leading to the weakening of the structural integrity of the various types of knee joints. Calcium insufficiency can contribute to bone disorders like weakening of bone, loss of bone mass or bone tissue reduction

Symptoms of Low Calcium in the Body

Low levels of calcium can cause:

A waggling walk
Pain in the joint and bone
Deformity in the bone
Curvature of the bone/Bone fractures
Reduced mobility due to stiffness or pain.

The Recommended Dose of Calcium:

People, who are deficient in calcium and experience symptoms related to it, can help reduce these losses by supplementing themselves with the recommended amounts of calcium.

The recommended daily dose of calcium to be taken by adults of age 19-70 years is 1000 mg/day. However, people more than 70 years of age should consume 1200 mg/day of calcium. Taking these supplements can reduce the risk of bone degeneration, fractures, and risk of falling frail and also prevent you from undergoing total knee replacement surgery.

What are the Sources of Calcium?

Calcium pills are an effective source of calcium which when taken can effectively reduce joint inflammation and pain, especially in the knee joints. Some good sources of calcium include:

Dark leafy greens
Milk and milk products
Calcium-fortified foods
Plant-based milk products like soy milk, rice milk
Breakfast cereals