Calcium Functions -- Bone as the Calcium Nutrient Reserve -- Cellular Functions and Fluxes of Calcium -- Techniques for Studying Calcium Metabolism and Its Relationship to Disease -- Nutritional Epidemiology -- Clinical Approaches for Studying Calcium Metabolism and Its Relationship to Disease -- Kinetic Studies -- Calcium Consumption, Requirements, and Bioavailability -- Requirements for What Endpoint? -- Dietary Calcium -- Food Sources, Supplements, and Bioavailability -- Calcium Homeostasis -- The Calcium Economy -- Molecular Regulation of Calcium Metabolism -- Influence of Total Diet on Calcium Homeostasis -- Influence of Lifestyle Choices on Calcium Homeostasis -- Influence of Physical Activity on Calcium and Bone -- The Case for a Calcium Appetite in Humans -- Calicium Through Development -- Infancy and Childhood -- Prepuberty and Adolescence -- Calcium in Pregnancy and Lactation -- Calcium and Disease -- Calcium in Systemic Human Health -- Calcium and Oral Health -- Dietary Calcium and Obesity -- Polycystic Ovary Syndrome and Reproduction -- Premenstrual Syndrome -- Calcium Throughout the Life Cycle -- Calcium, Vitamin D, and Cancer -- Dietary Calcium and the Metabolic Syndrome -- Calcium and Phosphate Control in Patients With Renal Disease -- Hypertension and Cardiovascular Disease.

Calcium performs diverse biological functions in the human body and is a micronutrient essential to human health and well-being. It serves as a second messenger for nearly every biological process, stabilizes many proteins, and in deficient amounts is associated with a large number diseases and disorders. In Calcium in Human Health, a panel of highly respected researchers and clinical practitioners comprehensively reviews the state of our knowledge concerning this ubiquitous micronutrient, not only demonstrating its importance to human health, but also defining its many complex roles. The authors summarize the latest basic scientific information on the cellular and metabolic functions of calcium, explaining the leading techniques for accurately measuring its bioavailability, absorption, and kinetics, and showing that calcium deficiency is a major problem while calcium excess a rare one. They also examine the complex regulation of calcium absorption, distribution, and excretion, as well as the multiple interactions of diet, lifestyle, and physical activity in calcium homeostasis. Their discussion of the specific roles of calcium in a variety of clinical disorders-osteoporosis, oral health, obesity, reproductive disorders, and the metabolic syndrome-provides new insights and raises new questions. The complex changes in calcium and phosphate regulation that occur in renal disease and the potential role of calcium in hypertension and vascular disease are also addressed. Comprehensive and authoritative, Calcium in Human Health offers health professionals and researchers a vast amount of current information on the sources, biological function, interactions, and disease implications of calcium, a critical benchmark resource for improving the health outcomes of individuals, finding new drugs that alter the function of the extracellular calcium receptor, setting adequate dietary requirements, and developing new disease-prevention programs.