How does the new Calcium Absorption Score work?
I just discovered the new Calcium Absorption Score. I don't understand how it works or what causes it to rise or fall. Yesterday I consumed roughly 1,200 mg of calcium (mostly from dairy and soy milk) yet this new score says I only "absorbed" 30%.
Comments
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Maybe a score of 30% is the optimum, if the body can not absorb all the calcium? How would you get 100% absorption?
_"The absorption of calcium varies depending on the type of food; absorption from dairy products and fortified foods is about 30%, while absorption from certain plants may be much lower due to the presence of compounds that form indigestible salts with calcium."__
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My absorption score seems to increase over time. I've never seen a day where I scored more than 30% on calcium absorption. But when I pull up a Nutrition Report covering a week or several weeks, the absorption score jumps to 89%. How is this possible?
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The exact same numbers for me as LaraMag shared! Seems very strange that the numbers are the EXACT same! Hmmmmm
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I consume phytates and oxylates and generally meet my calcium goals or exceed them. I get a wide fluctuation from 18% to 38%. Cronometer should explain how it works and why think this score is meaningful for users given that the quality of the data for foods with phytates and oxalates isn't that great. If you tap on the score, you'll see the fine print that says something like this "Based on the data-quality of the 31 items logged we have a confidence score of 77.9%. For more information on how to boost your data quality...." I don't see a list of the 31 items.
Then there are other factors involved with absorption, age, menopause, lactation. How you prepare your legumes (cooked from dried (soaked and rinsed) vs canned/bottled, etc.
I would say get a bone density test. -
I had an espresso coffee with 3 tbs of milk and my absorption score was 45%. I then went on to add 40 grams of rolled oats, 10 grams chia seeds, 10 g pumpkin seeds, 2 brazil nuts, goji berries, spices, 1 cup of (high protein, 2%) milk. All cooked on the stoptop to make porridge (usually I soak it overnight and often use sprouted oats.) My absorption score went to 15%. It''s really a perplexing addition to the app to be honest.
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Thanks, everyone, for your responses. While I generally understand that certain foods like wheat cereals, soy milk and nuts have high phytate levels, even when I reduce consumption of those items, it doesn't seem to boost my absorption levels.
I usually have a consumption rate of about 25 to 30% and I do hit 1100 or 1200 mg of calcium daily, getting about 3/4 of the calcium from dairy sources and the rest from fruits/veggies like bok choy, oranges, figs and broccoli.
If you click on the tiny question mark that appears after your calcium level after clicking on the round circle score, you'll get a lot more info, though following the tips for increasing absorption (for days where I've observed my numbers are lower than average) haven't really boosted absorption.
It's unfortunate that some very healthy foods that I happen love, like nuts, can really increase your phytate or oxalate levels.
Here's the link to more info if you can't find the page mentioned above:
https://support.cronometer.com/hc/en-us/articles/360042110112-Nutrition-Scores#h_01KFNXHHPCZH03V51Z9KHC0Z14 -
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I'm going to keep consuming vegetables, beans and nuts. My RD told me that "no, you do not have to soak and dehyrate every nut in my kitchen". (I was seriously thinking of soaking and dehydrating nuts.) I'll be discussing this topic with her at my next session.
As an experiment I logged Fried Chicken fricasse with gravy to my lunch and my calcium absorption score really went up.
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hi Maggie.
one alternative to soaking nuts which let’s face it doesn’t sound very appetizing, would be to swap out the higher phytate nuts for lower phytate nuts. For instance, as soon as I finish up my stash of chopped walnuts, I’ll be using pecans moving forward. And I guess I will try to avoid buying the dark chocolate covered almonds at BJ’s that I liked so much! When it comes to nuts, I believe walnuts, almonds and Brazil nuts were the worst offenders.
The nuts I’ll keep eating have more moderate levels of phytates and I’m hoping that by doing this kind of thing with other foods, it will all make a difference.
I’ve been doing the same kind of thing with greens for a while now. I completely avoid spinach, Swiss chard and beet greens in favor of bok choy, kale and arugula.
spinach adds a tremendous amount of phytates to your salad. I noticed that when doing “mixed greens“ entries into chronometer.
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I rechecked my numbers very carefully for the last 7 completed days. The absorption scores were all even lower than I remember--I don't think one of them was over 20%. Still, the Nutrition Report for the last 7 completed days showed 89%. No change there. Given that this is said to be an average, this makes no sense.
