How Babies Absorb Calcium Could Be Key to Treating Osteoporosis in Seniors

A study in Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology details how breastfeeding infants absorb large amounts of calcium, with potential application for treating osteoporosis in seniors, reports ScienceDaily . The researchers identified calcium-absorbing channels in the lower two-thirds of the small intestines of breastfed infant mice, while most absorption in adult mammals occurs in the upper segment. Babies require massive ingestion of calcium in the first year of life to build the cartilage they are born with into the bones, with deposition sustained at a reduced rate until about 25 years of age. "You can imagine that if you have someone who has poor bone health, such as an older person . . . it would be very useful therapeutically to turn this pathway on for them," said the University of Alberta's Todd Alexander. Further research will examine this same mechanism in pigs, to determine if a hormone in breast milk is responsible for regulating the calcium channels. "Understanding that would allow us to either take the active ingredient out of breast milk or synthesize it as an additive so we could give it to people as a tablet or an injection," Alexander noted.