Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After doing lots of research on calcium supplements (stemming from the purchase of ABSOLUTE Calcium product) I am concerned that most calcium products on the market using calcium carbonate are just not doing the trick for our/my reptiles.
According to http://www.wordofsite.com/kingsway.html:

"Calcium Carbonate
This compound is about 40% actual calcium, and only about 10% of this is absorbed by the body. For every 1,000 mg of calcium carbonate you consume, you are getting only about 40 mg of usable calcium.

Calcium Lactate
This compound is most commonly found in dairy products. It is 37% calcium, of which 33% is absorbable. You end up getting 122 mg of useable calcium per 1,000 mg consumed.

Calcium Citrate
It is 21% calcium, of which 50% is absorbable. You get 105 mg. for every 1,000 mg consumed."

Judging from this, a calcium lactate supplement should be the best because out of 1,000mg you absorb 122mg of calcium. When I saw the word "lactate" I thought that it might not be good for reptiles because it might be related to lactose. I found that this is not the case from http://www.drkimberly.com/lactose.html:

"Note: Lactate, lactalbumin and calcium compounds are salts of lactic acid and DO NOT contain lactose."

So if this is the case, then why aren't we using calcium lactate supplements for our lizards? I found 9oz of calcium lactate powder for $6.39 at vitaminusa.com. Does anyone actually use calcium lactate on their lizards without ill effects? I'm very curious about trying it.

My next choice would be the calcium citrate. I wondered if citrate was related to citric acid in oranges (which I know is not good in large amounts). I think citrate is part of the citric acid cycle, so I don’t know if it would be good to use a calcium citrate supplement on reptiles.

Jessica

Part of the problem is that your relying on information from a site that is selling something(coral calcium). Calcium carbonate supps. have worked for many breeders for many years and still does. I think the anecdotal evidence of all the healthy eggs laid and babies raised using these products speak for themselves. Many of the successful breeders on this forum use miner-all I and rep-cal. Both of these products are calcium carbonte products. Hope this helps.
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Bill DiFabio
Garden State Herpetoculture...website to follow...
Email Me
"If you don't have enemies, you don't have character." - Paul Newman

This calcium stuff is complicated!
True, you should never rely on just one source for correct information, especially if they are trying to sell you something, but at least that page got me thinking.

After a more refined search this is what I've come up with.
Calcium carbonate is more insoluble and harder to break down. It requires an acidic environment to do so (should be taken with food). Calcium citrate, although not contianing as much elemental calcium is more soluble and does not require an acidic environment to break down. I had a hard time finding more out about calcium lactate, but I do know that there is a supplement called Calcium Powder Plus that can be used for reptiles. I believe that calcium lactate also does not require an acidic environment to break down. The following quote was taken from
http://www.tortoisetrust.org/articles/calcium.htm:

"Calcium carbonate has the highest concentration of calcium by weight (40%), whereas calcium citrate has 21% calcium and calcium phosphate has 8% calcium by weight. Although calcium carbonate has the highest concentration of calcium by weight, this form of calcium is relatively insoluble, especially at a neutral pH. In contrast, calcium citrate, although containing about half as much calcium by weight, is a more soluble form of calcium. Certain preparations of calcium (e.g., bone meal, dolomite) may contain contaminants such as lead, aluminum, arsenic, mercury, and cadmium. Significant amounts were identified in calcium carbonate supplements labeled oyster shell, for example. Chronic intake of these supplements may pose an unnecessary risk. Most commercial calcium preparations are tested for heavy metal contamination."

Next quote from
http://www.oralchelation.com/calcium/boneupa.htm

"How Does Calcium Get Inside Your Body?

The easiest way for some substance to get absorbed into the body is if that substance will dissolve in water, and the dissolved ingredient is broken down into the size of individual atoms. That is what happens for some forms of calcium, but not, unfortunately, calcium carbonate.
Calcium carbonate will not dissolve in pure water. It will dissolve, however, if there is acid in the water. So, we begin to see that when there is acid present, calcium can be dissolved – when it is dissolved, it can be absorbed. One very important acid in the body is hydrochloric acid (HCl) produced in the stomach to help digest (dissolve) food particles.
Some calcium carbonate is dissolved by the stomach acids – but it’s a slow process. If the stomach empties the calcium out, into the intestines before much dissolving has gone on, then most of the calcium will be wasted.
Calcium carbonate is NOT a useful source of calcium if you want efficient absorption from the intestines into the blood stream.
More soluble forms of calcium include calcium citrate, calcium lactate and calcium aspartate. These forms of calcium would be more easily absorbed into the body than calcium carbonate, but even they are absorbed slowly compared to the special type of calcium described later in this article.
Since calcium carbonate is so common on the earth, it is very cheap and it is one of the most common forms of calcium supplement which people take. You’d be wasting your money on it.
Only 10 percent of the calcium in our bones is in the form of calcium carbonate. The most important calcium in bones is in the form called calcium phosphate – a combination of calcium and phosphorus. But, calcium phosphate is not easily absorbed into the body, either."

Next quote from http://www.healthlink.mcw.edu/article/964794298.html

"In the article you sent me from the November, 1999 issue of The Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, Howard J. Heller, MD and his colleagues compared the calcium absorption of Citracal (a calcium citrate formulation) and Os-Cal (a calcium carbonate one) after a single oral dose (500 mg calcium), taken with a meal. By measuring blood levels of calcium, they demonstrated that calcium citrate is 2.5 times more bioavailable (easier for your body to use) than calcium carbonate."

Other websites to check:
http://ag.arizona.edu/maricopa/fcs/bb/supps.htm
http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/ext_f&n/_timely/calcium.htm
http://www.bpventure.com/calcium.html
http://www.kcwlsfriends.homestead.com/calciumandwls.html
http://www.healthcastle.com/calciumcarbonate-calciumcitrate.shtml

Hope I have given people some food for thought. Sorry I don't have any concrete answers. I'll keep looking.
Jessica

Jessica,
Great post, and I respect your incetive to learn about what you supplement your reptile with. I have gone through this myself in the past. I questioned the products I have been using for years that worked. I ultimately came to the conclusion that you can make yourself dizzy with all the conficting info. I should have known better also because I have a minor in nutrition and went through this in college. The fact is (with humans), although calcium carbonate is less bioavailable than other forms of calcium, it works. Again with reptiles, calcium carbonate based products have been used for many years with great success. I don't see any reason to question it's efficacy, when at least 95% of the reptile breeding community uses a caco3 based product.
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Bill DiFabio
Garden State Herpetoculture...website to follow...
Email Me
"If you don't have enemies, you don't have character." - Paul Newman

My question is this: why is more soluble neccesarily better?
In figuring rations for production animals (like we did on my father's dairy farm) we would take availabilty of the feed/supplement, cost, and bioavailability of the nutrients into account. If we could get a cheap feed stuff that had a low bioavailability we would just feed more of it and there wasn't any detrimental effect.

In other words - if the diet you are currently feeding is meeting the needs does there NEED to be a change? Okay, so I quess that is two questions 1) is the diet you are currently feeding meeting the daily need of free calcium and 2) is there an advantage to changing the diet.

There are two ways of answering the first question - either do an analysis of the diet you are feeding and balance that against reported daily need of nutrients or compare your diet to diets that have proven to work in the past.

As far as answering the second one - I don't know exactly; Although I can add that in talking with my dragon's vet he told me that the number of cases of hypercalcemia [overdosing on calcium suplimentation] is on the rise 'cuz people have heard 'bout MBD and think that if a small amount is good, a larger amount is better.

So, I would say if you are follwoing a 'tried and true' diet there should be little to worry 'bout as far as health of the animal but looking into the topic is very interesting and I bet the info will come in handy to someone down the road (like if you have an animal that doesn't acidify it's stomach enough, then the 'tried and true'diet probably won't meet that one animal's needs)

Like I said - no definite answers but thanks for sharing the info
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Russ