 It's pretty much common knowledge that calcium helps build strong bones. And it makes sense, right? Eat something that the bone is composed of and that would make it stronger. That works sometimes in the context of nutrition, but it's not necessarily true. If that was the case, wouldn't you be consuming the bones themselves? Upon further inspection, calcium is linked strongly to heart disease as well as kidney stones. This is because the RDA, the recommended daily allowance for calcium, is far too high. And my belief is that this is based off of the vitamin D3 RDA being too low, as it was based off of a statistical error. As well as us not having an established vitamin K2 RDA, vitamin K2 not being too understood as of right now in modern nutrition. Both vitamin D3 and K2 play an important role in calcium metabolism, but first we have to understand calcium. And before we understand calcium, we have to understand mineral chelations. Chelations are pretty much what the mineral is bound to. Any mineral, whether it's calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, all of these are bound to something else. In the context of calcium, the primary ones we are talking about in the context of human nutrition are calcium oxalate, calcium bound to an oxalic acid molecule occurring primarily in plant foods, calcium phosphate, calcium bound to a phosphorus molecule again occurring in plant foods, and calcium carbonate. Calcium bound to a carbonic acid molecule, this is found in dairy products. Some of these are also found in a bunch of other foods as well as drinking water. What these chelations determine is the bioavailability of the calcium in the body, essentially how it is absorbed and utilized by the tissues in the human body. And as you can imagine, some forms of these calcium are natural, some not so natural. So where do we get this calcium and how do we determine which forms of calcium we should be getting? Most people think spinach is a good source of calcium and I can't blame them because if you Google spinach, look at the nutritional value of spinach on any database, you'll see that it has a fairly high percentage of calcium, but the paper value is not indicative of what occurs in the body. This is something that applies to a lot of other nutrients, especially in the context of plant foods and especially on vegan diets. What you are consuming is not necessarily what your body is absorbing. In this case specifically, calcium bound to oxalates and oxalic acid molecule, their absorption is greatly inhibited. This leads to the two primary dangers of calcium, kidney stones and arterial calcification, which leads to heart disease. Calcium oxalate is actually the type of calcium that we see deposited in the kidneys as well as the arterial wall in people with calcification in their body. In the first study, we see calcium oxalate being deposited in the liver and kidneys of rats. In the second study, we see large supplemental doses of calcium may lead to stone formation and this study shows 80 to 90% of kidney stones are composed of calcium in the form of either calcium oxalate or calcium phosphate. What's far more alarming than kidney stones is the sheer amount of association with calcium and heart-related issues. The first study shows a 30% increased risk of myocardial infarction, also known as a heart attack. The second study shows a 17% increased risk in renal calciumi, also known as kidney stones and a 20 to 40% increased risk in heart attacks. The third study reporting a significant increase in cardiovascular events following supplementation with calcium. Calcium supplements cause kidney stones, acute gastrointestinal events, and increase the risk of myocardial infarction and stroke. And one last study showing that this is not just limited to foods, fruits, vegetable supplements, hard water, the water you're drinking can also have large amounts of calcium which can lead to these problems. And in the case of foods, oxalates present in certain vegetables such as kale are known for causing kidney stones, plenty of anecdotal evidence for this. Given all of this evidence, these mechanisms of what these forms of calcium do in the body which at least consider that calcium might not be conducive to having healthy bones. What really solidified my opinion on calcium was that there is no source of calcium present in natural foods outside of the context of dairy. And dairy is certainly not a food that every single group of humans would have consumed. It's not present in every single human diet there is. It's simply not a practical solution. It doesn't make sense from a logical standpoint. What this means is that we can conclude that humans, hunter-gatherers, paleolithic ancestors, indigenous groups, native people, whatever you'd like to call them, did not obtain a significant amount of calcium in the context of what the current recommended daily allowances of 1,000 milligrams. In addition to that, I've been on a carnivore diet for about six and a half years now consuming no considerable source of dairy, plant foods, anything that people would deem as a good source of calcium. Six and a half years, guess what my blood calcium levels are? Red in the middle, completely perfect. This leads me to believe, well, if I haven't consumed calcium for six and a half years and my calcium blood levels are perfect, come on, like what's going on? So if calcium doesn't build strong bones then what does? Maybe we should take a look at what actually causes calcium to be absorbed in the body. And that answer is vitamin D3, a hormone produced by the body that we obtained from the sun. If calcium levels drop too low, a hormone stimulates the production of calcitriol, which is a metabolite of vitamin D. This binds to the vitamin D receptor, which increases the absorption of dietary calcium in the stomach and kidneys, as well as mobilizes calcium from bone when there is insufficient dietary calcium. Here is a study proving the synergy between vitamin D and calcium. Several randomized placebo control trials with vitamin D and calcium showed a significant decrease in fracture incidents. We also see that calcification in vascular tissue can be reduced rapidly with the administration of this hormone that needs vitamin D3. So we know vitamin D3 is needed to absorb calcium as well as for the initial mobilization of calcium. To ensure it gets to the right place, we need vitamin K2, a form of vitamin K that is only found in animal foods as well as fermented foods. Only animal foods like pasture-raised eggs, as well as things like fermented, raw grass fed cheeses are the best sources of vitamin K2. It's also worth mentioning that these vitamin K2 foods were present in every indigenous tribe. It's why they actually, in some cases, left food out to rot. They understood the importance of this vitamin and its role in human health. And upon further scientific inspection, there's actually an explanation for this. Vitamin K2 contains matrix-gla protein. Matrix-gla protein binds to calcium ions. This keeps calcium out of your kidneys, preventing kidney stones out of your blood vessels where it would cause heart disease. And it also helps calcium get to your bones and teeth, making your bones stronger and resistant to cavities. Or you could get Frankie's Tooth Powder on my website, frank-to-final.com. Here we see a 270-day course of vitamin K2 administration that shows the reduction in the progression of heart disease. Unfortunately, these people already had stage 3 and 5 kidney disease and the dosage of vitamin K2 was a fraction of what it actually could be. The dosage was 90 micrograms where you can obtain well over 400-500 micrograms on a high, fat-soluble vitamin diet. From what I've previously said, we can conclude that vitamin D and K have some sort of synergistic effect based on just the mechanism of what they do in the body. But we also have studies showing this exact same thing. One on the combination of vitamin D and K being more effective than vitamin K itself. And another study showing that the consumption of both vitamins is better than either on its own. So in addition to vitamin D3 and K2, it's also worth mentioning vitamin A as it's the other primary vitamin that we are seeking to obtain from high-quality animal foods. Vitamin A in the form of retinol, the form that is found only in animal foods, has antagonistic interactions with vitamin D3. I'm sure we could even bring omega-3 fatty acids into this discussion discussing their role in blood health, but that would be way too much for one video. All of these things are overwhelming, even to me. But it's very simple. If you follow a natural way of living, as our ancestors did, getting plenty of sunlight, eating a variety of high-quality animal foods, especially those fermented animal foods our ancestors used to consume to get adequate amounts of vitamin K2, you won't only prevent any possible issues with calcium, but you will become an optimal version of yourself. Unlike vegans. This discussion in the context of vegans becomes a whole different thing because vegans on paper can obtain calcium oxalate and they can get their kidney stones if they want, but the main issue with these vegan diets is that they don't have these fat-soluble vitamins present in large enough amounts and their body isn't getting cholesterol so it can't metabolize vitamin D3 effectively. So to sum this up as easily as possible, a vegan can consume vitamin K2 from a supplement or a fermented food like natto. We know vegans can obtain vitamin K2. The issue here occurs with vitamin D3. A vegan can take a vitamin D3 supplement, but vitamin D3 needs cholesterol in the body to be metabolized and your liver can only produce so much cholesterol. As seen by the antagonistic effect of vitamin A and D3, vitamin A is also a concern in the context of a vegan diet because your body has to convert carotene in plant foods to the retinal form of vitamin A. So the whole metabolism of calcium in the context of vegan diets is certainly more stressful on the body. I don't really know or think if calcium is a primary concern on a vegan diet, especially with all of the other issues, but it's definitely worth mentioning that the metabolic pathways associated with the plant form of these vitamins versus the animal form of these vitamins is something that we can touch on in the future. So thank you guys for watching. If you guys would like to support the channel, please like, subscribe and share the video. Frankie Boy is up at 4 a.m. before work filming a video for you guys. So if you guys would like to check out my Amazon shop, there are a bunch of supplements on there that advocate high nutrient density, cod liver oil for vitamin A, D and K2. If you guys would like to check out my website, as I said earlier, I have my hygiene products on there. I'm wearing my hair pomade. I got my tooth powder, deodorant, moisturizing cream, lip balm, almost everything. We're not there yet, boys. On Instagram, I post some selfies, some funny stuff. On Twitter, you guys can see me argue with other carnivore dieters. That's all I really do. And if you guys would like to reach out to me for one-on-one consultations in regards to reducing inflammation and improving the overall nutrient density of your diet and lifestyle, you can reach out to me via email frankatufano at gmail.com or through the contact form on my website below.