Ray Peat on calcium

"Phosphate, which predominates in grains, beans, nuts, meats, and fish, increases our production of parathyroid hormone, while calcium and magnesium inhibit its production. This hormone, which increases with age, suppresses immunity, and in excess it causes insomnia, seizures, dementia, psychosis, cancer, heart disease, respiratory distress and pulmonary hypertension, osteoporosis, sarcopenia, histamine release, inflammation and soft tissue calcification, and many other problems."

- September 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"When vitamin D or calcium is deficient, or when phosphate is excessive, and in hypoglycemia and stress (Ljunghall, et al., 1984), parathyroid hormone increases. This can lead to softening of bones, and hardening of soft tissues, especially arteries, sometimes brain, skin and other organs. Parathyroid hormone increases blood pressure, even before the calcium stiffening is detected."

- September 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"During the night, parathyroid hormone usually rises (Radjaipour 1986; Logue 1989, 1990; Fraser, 1998), and especially during aging, this causes a significant loss of calcium from the bones. Having a large part of the day’s calcium at bedtime reduces the nocturnal rise of PTH and calcium loss from bones"

- September 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"a moderate increase in calcium and vitamin D reduces obesity and increases the metabolic rate, and a fair amount is kno/wn about the mechanisms involved."

- September 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The reduction of parathyroid hormone by increased calcium and vitamin D is closely related to reduced obesity, and to the health problems associated with obesity—hypertension, insulin resistance, heart arrhythmias, depression, and various inflammatory conditions."

- September 2017 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Stress apparently increases a persons need for all nutrients including calories and protein. The vitamins most commonly used for resisting stress are A, C, E, and pantothenic acid. The minerals magnesium, calcium, potassium and zinc can help in the first stages of stress, and sodium supplements may be needed in the last extreme stage of stress when the adrenals have been exhausted."

- Nutrition For Women

"The adrenal hormones and mineral metabolism are disturbed in stress, whether the cause is a disorganized style of life, or the injury of surgery. The diet should include about 90 grams of protein (in frequent feedings), eggs as a source of sulfur (needed to synthesize joint lubricants, for example), and should keep the ratio of magnesium to calcium high (as with vegetables, bran, fruit), and the phosphate intake low (this would include using green leaves in place of some meat, as well as using cheese). Vitamins C, E, and pantothenic acid are needed in especially large amount in stress. Vitamins A and B2 are also essential for production of the anti-stress hormones. Inositol is known to protect biological materials from many kinds of damage, and might have this effect in arthritis, but I dont know of any research in this particular application."

- Nutrition For Women

"The argument for using estrogen to cure or prevent osteoporosis is based on the fact that estrogen causes diminished urinary excretion of calcium. A vitamin E deficiency (and estrogen is known to increase the need for vitamin E) causes calcium to be retained by muscles. Any toxin, in fact, causes calcium retention in the soft tissues for example, when the heart is deprived of oxygen, it absorbs calcium. Since no skeletal improvement can be demonstrated by x-rays, I suspect that the improved calcium retention is merely a toxic effect of estrogen"

- Nutrition For Women

"Magnesium acts against calcium (and estrogen) in the clotting system, can prevent spasms of blood vessels, and can spare oxygen."

- Nutrition For Women

"n old age, the walls of blood vessels tend to become hardened with calcium. In at least some tissues, it is known that calcification begins in degenerating mitochondria, and mitochondria tend to deteriorate in aging tissue. Nutrients such as iodine, vitamin E, magnesium and vitamin B2 are especially important for maintaining the function of the mitochondria, which produce most of our energy."

- Nutrition For Women

"Teeth that are sensitive to heat or cold suggest a deficiency of calcium, magnesium, or vitamin D."

- Nutrition For Women

"As we age, we accumulate more and more of the heavy metals in our tissues. Lead replaces calcium, and it reaches concentrations in the bones many times higher than in the soft tissues."

- Nutrition For Women

"Nearly all Americans have porous, weakened bones and teeth by the time they are 50, because of the large amount of meat eaten in relation to other foods. When excess phosphate (from meat or wheat germ, for example) is eaten, calcium and magnesium are removed from the teeth and bones to be excreted with the phosphate."

- Nutrition For Women

"Using a large amount of milk improves the ratio of calcium to phosphorus, but doesnt supply enough magnesium to prevent tooth decay, heart trouble, and cramps."

- Nutrition For Women

"ATP is more stable than many chemists realize — it is only a lack of magnesium or an excess of calcium which destabilizes its molecular structure. This seems to be involved in the sedative and anti -cramp actions of magnesium."

- Nutrition For Women

"Nutritional thermogenic factors include sodium, calcium, vitamin D, carbohydrates, especially sugar, and protein, which interact with our endogenous energy regulating factors, especially thyroid and progesterone."

- November 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"using calcium channel blockers and acetazolamide to treat the new disease, because of their therapeutic effect in high altitude pulmonary edema. He didn’t mention it, but both of these drugs can correct the tissue deficiency of carbon dioxide."

- May 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Calcium channel blockers, paralleling that effect of CO2, are effective treatments for high altitude pulmonary hypertension."

- May 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Like acetazolamide, the other recognized treatment for altitude sickness, calcium channel blockers inhibit carbonic anhydrase, facilitating the body’s retention of CO2."

- May 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The presence of lactate corresponds to some degree of reductive excess in cells, and the degree of reduction regulates the calcium channels, controlling the excitatory effects of intracellular calcium"

- May 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Progesterone and its neuroactive metabolites including tetrahydroprogesterone or allopregnanolone, are very effective calcium channel blockers (Todorovic, et al., 2004; Pathirathna, et al., 2005; Hu, et al., 2007). A major function of progesterone is the inactivation of the estrogen receptor; estrogen and its receptor are powerful activators of cellular calcium uptake"

- May 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Studies of progesterone’s effects on recovery of nerve function after traumatic brain damage have found that vitamin D increases its effectiveness. By improving calcium homeostasis, opposing the effects of the parathyroid hormone which activates calcium channels, vitamin D (25-hydroxycholecalciferol) is coming to be considered a neurosteroid (Groves, et al., 2014; Gezen-Ak and Dursun, 2019), as well as an essential factor in immunity"

- May 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In reaction to the new corona virus, a few groups responded quickly, treating successfully with antiinflammatory things—losartan, cinanserin (a serotonin antagonist), aspirin, and azithromycin or erythromycin, which lower intracellular calcium. Aspirin’s effects overlap those of losartan, and it downregulates the angiotensin receptor, ATR1"

- May 2020 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The importance of salt and calcium in pregnancy relates to their effects on the respiratory energy system, and the fact that these effects aren’t widely known has led most doctors to believe that a diet that supplies all the required nutrients is adequate for pregnancy and lactation. Despite the presence of all the required nutrients, that would be adequate for someone with a generally supportive environment, a good diet won’t necessarily be adequate for someone with a problematic environment, or a history of stressful experiences."

- May 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Increasing the amount of sodium and calcium (and vitamin D, which also helps to lower parathyroid hormone and aldosterone) in the diet can lower the secretion of aldosterone and parathyroid hormone, with a resulting increasing in oxidative energy production."

- May 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"During the night, even with the quieting actions of sleep, breakdown of protein is much faster than synthesis, and calcium is lost from the bones."

- March 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Using snacks to minimize the nocturnal increase of free fatty acids and hypoglycemia is an effective way to support restorative sleep, and to retard the brain-aging effects of the accumulation of the unstable fatty acids. Calcium and vitamin D, sufficient to keep parathyroid hormone low, contribute to that process."

- March 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Salty snacks are especially helpful for bringing on sleep, probably by stabilizing blood glucose and lowering adrenalin. Ice cream, combining sugar, calcium, and some fat that prolongs the absorption of the sugar, is often effective for improving the quality of sleep."

- March 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The synthesis of serotonin in the brain depends on the activity of the enzyme, tryptophan hydroxylase, TPH, and this enzyme is activated by excitation of the cell, with increased intracellular calcium and reduced glutathione (GSH), and inactivated by oxidation of glutathione."

- July 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Avoiding prolonged fasting and stressful exercise that increase free fatty acids, and combining sugars with proteins to keep free fatty acids low, and using aspirin, niacinamide, or cyproheptadine to reduce the formation of free fatty acids by unavoidable stress, avoiding an excess of phosphate relative to calcium in the diet, having milk and other antistress foods at bedtime or during the night, and being in a brightly lighted environment during the day, with regular sunlight exposure, can minimize the harmful effects of excessive serotonin and reduce the inflammation, fibrosis, and atrophy associated with it."

- July 2019 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Besides directly stabilizing the internal structures of the cell, progesterone increases the ATP concentration and oxygen consumption, decreases excitatory systems and numerous inflammation-related processes, decreases intracellular calcium concentration, and increases the use of glucose, leading to increased carbon dioxide production, as well as adjusting breathing and pH."

- January 2018 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Cyproheptadine, 2 to 4 mg at bedtime, would help with his sleep as well as the cancer. It also has calcium blocking action, aldosterone antagonism, and antagonizes serotonins antidiuretic effect."

- Email Response by Ray Peat

"Calcium and iron tend to be deposited together, and the mitochondria are usually the starting points for their deposition. Iron overload has been implicated in heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and many other degenerative diseases, including the brain diseases."

- 2001 - February

"While the flow of carbon dioxide moves from the mitochondrion to the cytoplasm and beyond, tending to remove calcium from the mitochondrion and cell, the flow of lactate and other Organic ions into the mitochondrion can produce calcium accumulation in the mitochondrion, during conditions in which carbon dioxide synthesis, and consequently urea synthesis, are depressed, and other synthetic processes are changed."

- 2000 - July

"Glucose, and apparently glycolysis, are required for the production of nitric oxide, as for the accumulation of calcium, at least in some types of cell, and these coordinated changes, which lower energy production. could be produced by a reduction in carbon dioxide, in a physical change even more basic than the energy level represented by ATP The use of Krebs cycle substances in the synthesis of amino acids, and other products, would decrease the formation of CO2, creating a situation in which the system would have two possible states, one, the glycolytic stress state, and the other, the carbon dioxide producing energy-efficient state."

- 2000 - July

"Both spontaneously, and enzymically, carbon dioxide combines with water. Formed inside the respiring cell, it is constantly leaving the cell as carbonic acid, bicarbonates, and carbonates. As it streams out of the cell, any positively charged group, such as a calcium ion, that it takes along will enter extracellular fluids with the carbonate or bicarbonate ion, approximately as a pair with equal positive and negative charges, but the removal of the alkaline metal ion will tend to restore the proteins’ acidic nature,"

- 2000 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The adsorptive effects of carbon dioxide, and a great variety of other chemical effects, modulate the cell’s structure_and function so that it retains far more potassium than sodium, and is able to excrete calcium while binding magnesium."

- 2000 - January - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"About 88 years ago, W. K. Koch (who is known for his cancer therapy) studied the parathyroid hormone and its relation to tetany (prolonged muscle contraction) and convulsions, and was able to demonstrate that the major minerals, sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium are to some extent interchangeable in alleviating the tetany and convulsions produced by removal of the parathyroid gland, though magnesium was the most effective."

- 1999 - December- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Practically any kind of poisoning causes cells to take up calcium from the blood,"

- 1999 - December- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The doctrine of hypocalcemic tetany led to the practice of treating tetany with intravenous calcium solutions; for example, veterinarians often treat cows’ grass tetany with large intravenous doses of calctum. The treatment works, but the tetany is now attributed to a magnesium deficiency (since magnesium supplementation works better, as Koch discovered), and excessive ammonia produced in the cow’s rumen can contribute to the magnesium deficiency."

- 1999 - December- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"everywhere calcium 1s studied, it is an activator, an excitant, a goad to activity, when it enters the cytoplasm."

- 1999 - December- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Iron and calcium both tend to accumulate with aging or stress, and both promote excitatory damage; bicarbonate contributes to keeping iron in its inactive state, and probably has a similar effect against a broad spectrum of excitatory substances."

- 1999 - December- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"W. F. Koch also found that excessive coagulation was produced in the toxic antirespiratory state. Carbon dioxide, probably by controlling the availability of calcium, is an important protection against abnormal clotting."

- 1999 - December- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"The neuroprotective steroids, progesterone and pregnenolone, and magnestum and carbon dioxide all protect against excitoxicity and the related excess of intracellular calcium, while promoting normal calcification."

- 1999 - December- Ray Peat's Newsletter

"But the pump-proteins--calcium-ATP-ase, sodium/potassium ATPase, etc.—are proteins that really exist, though their functions are much more / interesting than pumping. An important context for thinking about these ATPases is that the contractile protein of muscle (myosin) is a calcium dependent ATPase."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 4

"The fact is that sodium energizes. It helps to remove calcium from the cell, to produce ATP, and to promote absorption of glucose and amino acids."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 4

"Carbon dioxide is powerfully involved in the regulation of both sodium and calcium, as well as in respiration and energy production. It tends to relax both nerves and muscles. It is apparently one of the essential factors in preventing edema."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 4

"Sodium binds water to itself, and it is this feature that leads to its exclusion from the normal cell. CO2, when it is in water, especially with the carbonic anhydrase enzymes, combines with water. As it is formed in the mitochondria, this means that it will carry water (as well as calcium and sodium) out into the cytoplasm, and out of the cell."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 4

"Cellular excitation, exhaustion, and injury will affect the cells electrical fields in different ways depending on the availability of oxygen, glucose, salts, etc., but in each of those states, there is increased entry of calcium into the cytoplasm."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 2

"CO2 has many other effects that act in the same protective direction, such as calcium removal, tron binding, and water binding, and these other effects are at least as important as the pH effect."

- 1998 - Ray Peat's Newsletter - 2

"Oxygen deprivation causes tissues to retain  calcium (and iron), as does estrogen in many  cases, being similar to aging in promoting cellular  uptake of calcium. Since the porphyrins strongly bind metals, it has been suggested that they may have a role in mediating the deposition of metals in stressed tissues."

- 1997 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Men who have had a diagnosis of scleroderma have told me that with the use of thyroid and magnesium supplements, epsom salts baths, and topical progesterone and vitamin E, their symptoms regressed. I suspect that carbon dioxide produced in mitochondria is the main factor in removing calcium from them."

- 1997 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"thyroid and magnesium are often the factors needed to normalize mitochondria and prevent calcification. In general, fatigued cells take up calcium and lose magnesium."

- 1997 - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Early in the century, the tendency of calcium and iron to be deposited together in damaged tissues was noted, but the exact reason for this association still isnt known. I think irons role in age pigment, lipofuscin, is an important part of the mechanism."

- 1994 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Estrogen, and a variety of poisons, cause even soft tissues to retain calcium. Its clear that scleroderma, a hardening of the skin, involves the interaction of calcium, iron, lipid peroxidation, and hormones,"

- 1994 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Glucose depletion leads to adrenalin secretion, which causes fat mobilization, calcium-activated overstimulation of cells, with impairment of the energy production which is necessary for recovery (by way of muscle relaxation and calcium excretion, etc.)."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Calcium is a universal activator, but excess calcium is the central link in most types of cell damage. Calcium uptake and retention are promoted by adrenalin, histamine, vasopressin, energy depletion, and lipid peroxidation and by the activity of phospholipases; since calcium can activate phospholipases and lipid peroxidation, and interferes with energy production, vicious circles can develop."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"Excessive adrenalin and calcium also promote clotting, and ~ as the beta adrenergic receptors become desensitized - spasms in the coronary arteries. Altered blood vessel tone, which can be produced by serious stress, can cause venous pooling of blood, which synergizes with the impaired relaxation of the heart to cause cardiogenic shock."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"here are several systems that oppose the toxic effects of adrenalin. GABA, dopamine, and adenosine have multiple anti-adrenergic effects. In many situations, the parasympathetic system is protective against adrenalin. The protective steroids also act at many levels. Magnesium, retained in the ce)l largely under the influence of ATP and thyroid, is our basic calcium blocker, or calcium antagonist. GABA and dopamine inhibit the ACTH-glucccorticoid system, and shift the steroid balance toward the protective anti-glucocorticoids, progesterone, testosterone, pregnenolone, and DHEA."

- 1992 - June - Ray Peat's Newsletter

"In degenerative diseases, the stress and age - induced accumulation of iron and other mitochondria-toxic material (e.g., calcium, aluminum, and lipid peroxidation products including age pigment) and the failure of detoxifying systems make therapy with ordinary nutritional supplements fairly ineffective. Direct supplementation of the various natural protective substances (or their analogues) in addition to the protective vitamins (especially E) and minerals (especially magnesium) is more appropriate."

- 1992 - August.September - Ray Peat's Newsletter