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Calcium Absorptive Efficiency Is Positively Related to Body Size

Creighton University, Omaha, Nebraska 68131

Address all correspondence and requests for reprints to: Robert P. Heaney, M.D., Creighton University, 601 North 30th Street, Suite 4841, Omaha, Nebraska 68131. E-mail: rheaney{at}creighton.edu.

Background: Calcium absorption efficiency is a more important determinant of calcium balance than calcium intake itself. The sources of variability in absorptive performance are only partly elucidated.

Purpose: The aim of the study was to explore the relationship between body size and calcium absorption efficiency.

Design and Setting: Metabolic studies were performed on an inpatient metabolic unit in an academic health sciences center.

Subjects: One hundred seventy-eight women, with an average age of 50.2 yr, were studied from one to five times and yielded an aggregate data set containing 633 individual studies.

Methods: Calcium absorption fraction was measured by the dual-tracer method. Observed values were expressed as residuals from predicted values for each woman’s actual calcium intake, using the previously published relationship between intake and absorption.

Results: Absorption residuals were significantly positively correlated with height, weight, and surface area, and after adjusting for estrogen status, these body size variables accounted for approximately 4% of the total variability.

Conclusion: The magnitude of the effect is such that a woman 1.8 m in height would absorb 30+% more calcium from a given intake than a woman 1.4 m tall.

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