RALEIGH, N.C.—Not getting enough calcium in the earliest days of life may have profound, lifelong impact on bone health and obesity, according to new research from North Carolina State University.
During an 18-day trial involving 24 newborn pigs, researchers documented markedly lower levels of bone density and strength in 12 piglets fed a calcium-deficient diet compared to 12 piglets that received more calcium. When researchers looked at certain stem cells in bone marrow, they found that many of these cells in the calcium-deficient piglets appeared to have already been programmed to become fat cells instead of bone-forming cells. Because these programmed mesenchymal stem cells replicate to provide all the bone-forming cells for an animal’s entire life, very early calcium deficiency may have predisposed the piglets to have bones that contain more fat and less mineral, which could make those pigs more prone to osteoporosis and obesity in later life.
While the calcium-deficient pigs had substantially lower bone strength and density, blood tests didn’t indicate any difference in levels of the hormonal form of vitamin D, which regulates the amount of calcium circulating in the blood of older children and adults. This suggests that calcium regulation in newborns isn’t dependent on vitamin D.
The research is relevant to the infant food industry and suggests the significance of the nutritional status of breastfeeding mothers. It also points to a need for greater emphasis in very early life on bone health, not just during those times when children are growing most rapidly.
“While the importance of calcium nutrition throughout childhood and adolescence is well-recognized, our work suggests that calcium nutrition of the neonate may be of greater importance to lifelong bone health, due to its programming effects on mesenchymal stem cells,” the researcher noted. “It also points to a potential paradigm shift in which health professionals might want to begin thinking about osteoporosis not so much as a disease of the elderly, but instead as a pediatric disease with later onset.”
