My 11 year old is very active in all sports. Yesterday he started complaining about his shoulder hurting when running the mile. I think he is experiencing growing pains. Baseball practices just started, and he has three basketball games left. My concern is he doesn't like alot of dairy products, including milk, that contain the calcium his body needs. What can I give him in lieu of dairy products to replace the calcium that he desperately needs?

Thanks in advance.
ECTB Mom

Why do not consult with your family doctor?

My son is actually lactose intolerant so he never drinks milk. Our doctor told us to give him calcium supplements. Up to 900 mg a day. You can buy calcium supplements almost anywhere. Most come with vitimin D, which helps with absorption.

So, your son has shoulder pain and you assume it's a calcium deficiency? Are you a doctor or do you just play one on TV? Take him to a professional if it persists.

its prolly lactic acid build up. his calcium levels probably aren't that low. cereals have calcium as do some vegetables.

Milk calcium doesn't actually help. It's not natural to our body. Milk calcium actually hurts our bones. Artificial calcium in food is good. Neither do supplements. There was a recent harvard study that proved that and it proved something else. Big supplements (high mg) of vitamins are not good. In fact, they do the opposite. Those big supplements are not natural to your body. Your body is wired to get its nutrition from food, not from supplements (multi-vitamins are the only exception). These supplements actually help cause cancer and other diseases. Since they are so big and so un-natural to the body, the cancer cells will actually attract these vitamins. So basically, when you take a supplement, it can actually just be helping cancer cells.


If it's in food its good, if not, stay away. Also, doctors have to tell you to take a supplement. They could get arrested if they tell you other wise (dumb drug companies practically own the fda).

There are plenty of sources of calcium outside of dairy products. These include fruits, vegetables, beans, cereals, some types of orange juice, etc.

If your son is also eating fish, meats and eggs, then he's also getting some vitamin D from the diet which is required for the maintenance of blood calcium. Vitamin D is also formed from a byproduct in the formation of cholesterol (which your body makes naturally) in reaction to sunlight -called cholecalciferol (i.e. your son's body will make vitamin D while playing ball in the sun!). Younger children also have a lower requirement for calcium than older adults.

Hope this helps some, try not to fret the calcium too much!

thanks for the replys

I'd suggest tracking eat habits and seeing how much calcium (or any other vitamin, mineral, etc) you (or your son) is getting. MyPyramid.gov has a tracker that you can use. It's free

I think many people would be surprised at what they actually do get! I have been doing it the last few days, and while it's not the greatest out there probably, it works.

I have gotten an average of 730.225 mg of Calcium without consuming any milk. The recommendation is about 1000 mg but I would guess it might be a little higher for athletes.

quote:

Originally posted by leftypitcher08:
its prolly lactic acid build up. his calcium levels probably aren't that low. cereals have calcium as do some vegetables.

Lactic acid is good, not bad.

http://www.maxxtraining.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=89&highlight=lactic%20acid (Read JarHead's post and MAXX's post on Dec 20, 2006, 10:42 am)

A lot of those lactic acid posts are giving me a bad itch!! I'll outline the entire process so that everyone is in the know.

The first step in producing energy in the muscle is the breakdown of glycogen to glucose. The glucose is then utilized for energy (as an aside - when all of your glycogen stores have been depleted, your body then dips into your fat stores to produce energy). Glucose undergoes a series of reactions (collectively termed glycolysis) creating pyruvate. Pyruvate can do a few of different things from here. First, when enough oxygen is present, energy can be made in the mitochondria in the form of ATP (pyruvate is converted to acetyl-CoA which enters the citric acid cycle, producing NADH which is the required to produce energy). Pyruvate can also be shuttled into lactic acid when little oxygen is present.

The buildup of lactic acid during strenuous exercise is actually a survival mechanism that humans have adapted over the course of evolution. Converting glucose --> pyruvate <---> lactic acid is another way to create energy when the citric acid cycle is not active (this is when there is a deficiency of oxygen in the working muscle and therefore a diminished usage of NADH in the mitochondria, since oxygen is required to make ATP, or energy). I tend to disagree with some points in the article (the link above) - it should be that an athlete can use oxygen more efficiently than the non-athlete, thereby reducing lactic acid production (instead of the athlete's ability to "absorb more lactic acid"). In the presence of plenty of oxygen, very little lactic acid will be produced. Glycogen is not converted to lactic acid until there is a lack of oxygen. All of these pathways turn each other on and off depending on the amount of energy production of the muscle cell.

In other words, when you're short on oxygen, it's difficult for mitochondria to produce energy. Because this pathway isn't working, the pyruvate is diverted to create lactic acid, which builds up in working muscle in a shortage of oxygen. The muscle burning is due to a drop in blood pH as a result of the lactic acid buildup. This is actually where creatine comes in handy (creatine is kind of a storage unit for ATP). This allows you to use energy for a longer period of time during anaerobic exercise without the burning and fatigue.

The cramping obviously would go away once your muscles have received enough oxygen to burn off the lactic acid (lactic acid is routed back through pyruvate, through the citric acid cycle producing NADH and therefore producing energy in the mitochondria). The soreness after about 12-24 hours is a result of the microtears in the muscle.

Got it? Basically, in a working muscle without oxygen (anaerobic, like during sprinting), your body will produce lactic acid as a way to make energy (by producing NADH, from which energy is made). The soreness is also a survival mechanism in order to preserve the function of the muscle.

I know it's complicated, but that's how it works. I hope this helps a little.

You should have your answers concerning calcium. Obviously Mom and Dad don't drink milk either. They don't eat cottage cheese, reg. cheese, yogurt. Maybe Mom and Dad need to change their eating habits as kids tend to follow their parents footsteps. Oh, my parents favorite and something that I started eating later in life - sardines. Canned fish has calcium if you eat the bones (they're soft and small) - like sardines, mackeral, salmon. My wife makes fish cakes with the mackeral and salmon. Don't forget that there are other minerals besides calcium so if you take calcium supplements and eat a lot of calcium fortified food, you may be upsetting the body's balance.

Tim Robertson

Tim you missed this one by a mile,mom and dad &
younger son drink and eat dairy products like
crazy.

Please forgive my assumption and help me pull my foot out, my teeth are hurting.
I assume then that you have tried chocolate milk? Strawberry?
Also in reg. milk, is it whole,2%,1%,skim? You might try different fat percentages.
Do you all eat collards? How about chicken bone ends? A couple of sources of calcium and other minerals.

Tim Robertson

Just to add...there are real milk products with the Lactase enzyme removed. So lactose intolerant people can still drink real milk.

Lactaid and Dairy Ease come to mind.