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Like other nutrients, protein in excess
can be harmful to our body. A high consumption in protein is
believed to increase the amount of calcium lost in urine excretion.
A high-protein diet can also depletes the bones of their chief mineral
and thereby caused weakening of bones. As one of the breakdown
products of protein is acid and if a person goes on a high-protein
diet, then the acid load produces will get too high and the body must
offset the excess with chemicals released from the bone which will
also cause some leaching of the bone's calcium. In the process,
when neutralized acid is excreted in the urine, calcium follows along,
resulting in bone thinning. As the nutrient interactions are
more complicated than it might seemed, whether the protein-calcium
interaction actually results in weakened bones remains to be seen.
Any potential calcium loss depends on just how much a person eats in
the way of protein, calcium, and even phosphorus, another
bone-building nutrient. We should take in protein in the
moderate amounts recommended that is, 60 gms per day for men and 50
gms per day for women, you can rest assured knowing that protein, as
part of a well-balanced diet that also includes plenty of calcium, is
not at all proven to harm bone health.
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