THE CALCIUM CONTENT OF THE BODY IN RELATION TO THAT OF THE FOOD

Abstract

The importance of calcium in normal development accompanying growth, and the purely scientific interest in the so-called law of the minimum, have both emphasized the desirability of more extended investigations of the relation between the calcium intake and the calcium content of the growing body.In the present investigation, chemical analyses have been made of the bodies of large numbers of rats which, starting from comparable heredity and nutritional backgrounds and with all factors other than food maintained strictly uniform, had received food of differing calcium content. The calcium content of the diet was varied in two ways: (1) by varying the ratio of two natural foods of widely different calcium content wheat and milk; (2) by feeding specially designed laboratory diets in which calcium, in the form of calcium lactate, was the sole variable factor. In both cases vitamin D was amply supplied.It was thus found that individuals otherwise well nourished but with low calcium intake do grow up with calci...