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Cheddar: An excellent source of bioavailable calcium

Dr. Mali Reddy

Dr. Mali Reddy serves as president of the American Dairy and Food Consulting Laboratories and International Media and Cultures (IMAC Inc.), Denver, Colo. He holds several degrees including M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Iowa State University in food technology and microbiology. He is a guest columnist for this week’s issue of Cheese Market News®.

People today are more aware of health than at any other time period in history. Yet though we have made good progress in pharmacology, clinical medicine, disease diagnostics, food technology and nutrition, overall human health and quality of life have not improved in comparison to progress in science.

I believe this is due to lack of nutritional education and knowledge. Even though the U.S. government insists on printing nutritional labeling with specific details on total fat, proteins, vitamins and minerals for each food, the majority of consumers are not able to understand what it means in terms of their total daily intake. We have to put more effort into educating people regarding nutrition and also teach them the basics of reading, understanding and interpreting nutritional labeling of food, especially cheese.

It is a universally accepted fact that all human beings want to look good and stay healthy. However, there are two nutritional diseases that are prematurely aging the human population: osteoporosis (loss of bone mineral density) and sarcopenia (muscle loss). These two silent diseases rob physical fitness. Fortunately, both of these nutrition-related diseases can be prevented or slowed with proper nutrition. One of the miracle foods that can prevent and/or slow these two wasting diseases is cheese.

Osteoporosis is a silent disease because bone density or mass is lost without any sign of disease or sickness. The good news is osteopenia can be slowed irrespective of age with proper calcium supplementation and treatment.

In the human body, more than 99 percent of calcium is stored in the human bone and teeth. The rest of the 1 percent is distributed throughout the body controlling the functions of central nervous system, gastrointestinal system, heart, blood, kidneys, muscular system and hormonal system. The recommend daily allowance (RDA) for calcium is set at 1,000 to 1,200 mg/day. However, the RDA does not take into account the bioavailability of calcium. A simple way of defining the bioavailability is the amount of calcium absorbed and assimilated in comparison to the amount of calcium ingested. If 1,000 mg of calcium is consumed in a given day, and if all 1,000 mg is absorbed and assimilated, then such calcium is considered 100 percent bioavailable.

Bioavailable calcium is a must and is a daily requirement. Not all consumed calcium is bioavailable.

The absorption of calcium decreases as we age and particularly in women after menopause. According to the leading medical research, as the level of estrogen drops, the production of hydrochloric acid and other gastric secretions drops in the stomach, which will significantly decrease the ionization of calcium. Unless the calcium is fully ionized, it will not get absorbed efficiently in the GI tract. Calcium deficiency results in weaker bones, pain in the joints, sleeplessness, dullness of the skin, tiredness and premature aging. On the contrary, if we consume already ionized bioavailable calcium, we can override the absorption and deficiency problems.

One food which has a high level of bioavailable calcium is aged Cheddar. It also has been proven that some nonspecific dairy peptides (broken down milk or cheese proteins) enhance the absorption of calcium in the GI tract. Since the proteins are broken down to peptides and amino acids in the cheese during aging with the aid of starter cultures, adventitious flora and enzymes, they will in turn help the body absorb calcium. Consequently, Cheddar is the best food to consume to ensure maximum calcium absorption. An ounce of Cheddar will have 267 mg of calcium, whereas roughly 3.5 ounces of milk will have about 125 mg of calcium. Roughly about 60 percent of the calcium from milk will end up in Cheddar and 40 percent in whey.

There is a vast difference between the condition of the calcium (ionization) and the condition of protein (proteolysis) present in cheese vs. fluid milk. The calcium present in Cheddar is soluble, ionized and thus highly bioavailable, whereas out of 125 mg of calcium present in 3.5 ounces of milk, only one-third of the calcium is in true solution (40 mg). The rest of the calcium is in colloidal suspension combined with casein, phosphorous and citrate (85 mg).

In addition, about 20 percent of the calcium (25 mg/100 ml) present in milk will not be available to the body after pasteurization. I would venture to guess that a maximum of 60 to 70 percent of the calcium present in the pasteurized milk will be utilized by the body, provided the subject is healthy or younger. However, in the older population and women after menopause, this utilizable percentage of calcium may go down to 30 to 40 percent or even lower. In addition, according to the medical literature, gastrointestinal infection, food allergies and food intolerances significantly reduce the calcium absorption.

The calcium present in cheese is more soluble and bioavailable. The proteins are broken down to peptides and amino acids, which will further facilitate the absorption of calcium through vitamin D and phosphate-dependent active transport system at the proximal end of the small intestine (90 percent absorption).

Considering this, eating 1 ounce of Cheddar assures that the body will absorb close to 267 mg of calcium, which is 27 percent of U.S. RDA. Also, protein in the cheese is easily digestible in comparison to fluid milk because of the extensive protein breakdown due to rennet, starter cultures and adventitious microflora during aging. Individuals who are allergic to intact milk proteins (especially casein) may be able to tolerate aged Cheddar because of the hypo or reduced allergenic nature of the broken down proteins.

Similarly, consumption of the concentrated dairy protein present in aged Cheddar also is the best way to reduce the risk of sarcopenia. In addition, Cheddar has less than 1 percent of lactose sugar. Cheddar also has a residual bacterial lactase enzyme that will further help the breakdown of lactose sugar to glucose and galactose to reduce the lactose intolerance problem.

If a person can eat 1 ounce of Cheddar in each meal (total 3 meals), he or she is guaranteed to obtain calcium close to 80 percent of the RDA. Consuming 1 ounce of cheese per meal also increases consumption of saturated fat unless it is lowfat Cheddar, but there is no concrete evidence to show that saturated fat from cheese increase the serum cholesterol, unless a person has an existing condition. To reduce this problem, an ounce of cheese can be fortified with 750 mg of bioavailable calcium.

Assuming 1 gram of dairy-base calcium powder has 375 mg of bioavailable calcium, 750 mg can be added by including merely 2 grams of such powder per ounce of Cheddar. This will take care of the RDA for calcium, provided the calcium used for fortification is bioavailable.

Even though this article is focused on Cheddar, any fermented cheese with a final pH value of 5.1 to 5.3 will have more bioavailable calcium and peptides than their counterparts. Since most of the dairy starter cultures and adventitious flora are probiotics, the consumer is getting this additional benefit through cheese as well. It has been proven that passive calcium absorption in the ileum region of the gastrointestinal tract is enhanced with probiotics. It also has been well-established that peak bone mass must be attained at adolescence to reduce osteoporosis at a later age. Consequently, the younger population should consume more cheese to maximize their peak bone mass by the age of 20 to 25.

Conversely, older men and women after menopause also should consume cheese on a daily basis to maintain bone mineral density. In other words, Cheddar is an excellent food to supply bioavailable calcium for all age groups.

The dairy industry must come up with better innovations to increase the bioavailable calcium of Cheddar so that the older population can obtain better nutrition to override these wasting diseases.

Almost all of the standards of identity cheeses have specific limitations with regard to the level of addition of calcium during manufacturing.

One way to get around this is to fortify the cheese with bioavailable calcium (after making the cheese), at the time of packaging, and declaring it. A sure way to accomplish this is through the addition of bioavailable calcium fortified anti-caking agents or using bioavailable calcium as an anti-caking agent. Merely using non-bioavailable calcium salts as calcium supplements will not satisfy this requirement. In addition, cheese manufacturing procedures must be improved to retain more bioavailable calcium (the use of phosphate base bulk starter medium) in the matrix of cheese.

CMN

The views expressed by CMN’s guest columnists are their own opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of Cheese Market News®.

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