Calcium for PMS & PMDD: Calcium for Health

If you suffer from premenstrual syndrome (PMS) or premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), calcium may be the single most important nutrient for you. Whether you get calcium from food or from supplements, or a combination of both, you’ll want to make sure you’re getting the right amount. Usually, we don’t make that kind of unqualified, unequivocal statement about any possible PMS or PMDD remedy. But calcium, in the form of a dietary supplement, is actually the most researched nutrient for PMS, which makes us confident that it is an essential nutrient for PMS and PMDD.

You’ve no doubt heard a great deal about calcium being essential for bones, or muscles, or various other body systems and health conditions. Lately, though, there has been much high-profile published research suggesting that calcium supplements don’t help build bone, and that they may do harm in other areas. We discuss this complex issue below.

Calcium for PMS and PMDD

No nutrient has been as well studied for PMS as calcium. What’s more, the studies that were done on calcium were done using calcium supplements, not just calcium in food. Most studies on nutrients rely on people’s self-reports of what they eat, which are notoriously unreliable. In the case of PMS, saying that calcium pills help isn’t conjecture or wishful thinking: it’s been demonstrated, scientifically, multiple times.

As we’ve pointed out before, not every study is created equal. Scientific journals often fill their pages with poorly designed studies that come to unreliable conclusions. The studies on calcium and PMS, though, are of a different order: high-quality studies that meet the most rigorous standard: randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover studies.

The first of these studies was published in 1989 with 33 women with premenstrual symptoms completed the study, and 73% of them preferred calcium to placebo. The women who took calcium for PMS experienced significant relief from mood symptoms, bloating, and pain, both before and during their period. This study was followed up by a larger study published in 1998 that used calcium supplements with hundreds of women from all over the United States. In this study, there was an average 50% decrease in symptom intensity of nearly every PMS symptom, a highly significant result in such a large and varied population.

As we’ve pointed out before, PMS is oft-studied in Iran, but researchers there don’t always follow good research protocol. A notable exception is a study published in 2009 using calcium with hundreds of women, and finding significant results for premenstrual fatigue, cravings, and depression.

These and other studies make it clear that calcium supplements work to reduce a wide variety of PMS and PMDD symptoms. To decide what is the right amount of calcium for you to take, you’ll have to estimate, or better yet actually count up the amount of calcium you get in your diet, as too much calcium—like too much of anything—is not a good thing. For most women, 1,000 milligrams of calcium per day from diet and supplements is the right amount. In pregnancy, the correct amount goes up to 1,200 milligrams, and while nursing it goes up to 1,500 milligrams.

Don’t run out to buy a calcium pill just yet though. You should read this whole article to understand the proper role of calcium, and other nutrients, to your overall health.

Calcium for Bone Health and General Health

Nearly all (99%) of the calcium in your body is in your bones and your teeth. It is also the most abundant mineral in your whole body. Calcium is more than just bones: every cell in your body uses calcium to maintain a normal balance in your all-important cell membranes. This is particularly important for cells that are activated frequently, such as your muscles and nerves. Of course, the largest muscle in your body is your heart, so calcium is crucial to proper functioning of your heart muscle. Calcium is also essential to blood clotting, which is happening all the time but is especially important if you cut yourself or are injured.

Your body knows it needs precise amounts of calcium to keep your nerves, muscles, heart, blood clotting, and every cell functioning normally. Does this mean that if you don’t get enough calcium all these systems will malfunction? Absolutely not: your body will borrow calcium from your bones to make sure the calcium level in your blood stream is maintained within that very narrow but physiologically essential range. Calcium is so important to keeping you alive that your body has no qualms about weakening your bones, even if, in the long run this isn’t good for you.

How can you keep your body from robbing calcium from your bones, so that your skeleton stays strong throughout your entire lifetime?

• Don’t drink more than 3 cups of coffee per day, because the acid in coffee can take calcium from your bones (and you shouldn’t be drinking coffee anyway, if you have PMS or PMDD).
• Don’t drink more than one soda per day: it also contains calcium-robbing acid.
• Balance the animal protein in your diet with vegetables and fruits. Excessive animal protein depletes you of calcium and minerals, whereas plant foods help preserve them.
• Find alternatives to acid-reducing medications, such as Prilosec®, Prevacid®, and Nexium®, that interfere with mineral absorption (you can’t absorb minerals from your intestines without acid).
• All forms of exercise strengthen your bones. When you’re active, your body adds calcium and other important reinforcement to your bones.

Current Calcium Controversies


Calcium is one of the most commonly consumed dietary supplements in the US. There are calcium supplements in tablets, capsules, gelcaps, liquids, powders—you name it. There are calcium supplements that claim to be from coral; calcium mixed with vitamin D, or magnesium and zinc. You can pay an arm and a leg, or you can get it for relatively little at your local drugstore.

However, supplements are not drugs. The wide availability of calcium doesn’t necessarily mean it does what marketers claim it does. For instance, because of its role in regulating muscle contractions, calcium is one supplement that could help with cramps and stiff muscles. However, due to the complexity of our chemistry, calcium could also make cramps and stiff muscles worse. However, researchers have recently set out to understand if taking calcium supplements really does help build bone—the most common claim for this mineral—and if it is as harmless as is often believed.

Lately, much of the widely reported news on calcium research hasn’t been good. Researchers haven’t been able to confirm that taking calcium later in life helps build bone; and it appears that it may slightly increase the risk of a heart attack and/or kidney stones.

Based on the calcium research we’ve seen, we’re not convinced that taking calcium by itself, or calcium plus vitamin D, will build your bones. The best way to build your bones is to start early, when you’re about ten years old, with a varied diet and calcium supplements, if necessary. We believe that science and nutrition show that vitamins and minerals work best together, the way you get them in food. No food is just calcium or calcium and vitamin D unless you happen to have a taste for chalk! It’s best to take calcium combined with a complete multivitamin, and most importantly, that you take it with its inseparable sister nutrient, magnesium.

Calcium and Magnesium: An Inseparable Pair

Calcium and magnesium exist in a delicate balance in the body, like two sides of a seesaw or yin and yang. Although calcium is the most abundant mineral in the body, magnesium is number two. Magnesium is also the second most abundant mineral in bone health, though you rarely hear anyone talking about how important.

And yet, if you don’t take magnesium supplements, or have a high magnesium diet, you’re missing out. Magnesium is essential for healthy bones, but that is really a very small part of its role in keeping you healthy. It’s also probably an even more essential nutrient than calcium: over 300 essential chemical reactions in the body require magnesium, and yet it doesn’t appear as easy for the body to pull magnesium from bone to make up for deficiencies. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to get enough magnesium from diet alone.

Good Food Sources of Calcium

• Dairy foods are your #1 source, if you’re able to eat them: yogurt, cheese, milk   
• Canned fish with bones: salmon and sardines
• Cooked greens: spinach, collard greens, and dandelion greens
• Tofu, soy milk, and other soy products
• Nuts and seeds: almonds, hazelnuts, and sesame tahini

Magnesium functions like a calcium-channel blocker—one of the most common classes of drugs for high blood pressure. In fact, magnesium is an effective treatment for high blood pressure, in many cases. So the research that suggests there is an increased risk of heart attack with calcium supplements probably means that the calcium was acting as a magnesium-channel blocker. Magnesium is probably the most essential nutrient for the heart, and calcium is capable of blocking magnesium, just as magnesium does to calcium.

It’s a mistake to take calcium by itself, without magnesium. Take your nutrients together, like they would be in food, meaning a multivitamin is the best way to get any individual nutrient. And if your diet doesn’t deliver enough, take a calcium-magnesium combination supplement, not just calcium alone.

Real, Natural Relief—You Can Feel Great

PMS and PMDD misery aren't always taken seriously enough by doctors, family, and friends. At PMS Comfort, our purpose is to empower and educate you, and to provide real, natural relief so that you can feel great all month long. Our all-natural doctor-designed PMS Comfort is based on decades of experience helping thousands of women recover from what you've been going through.

We’re here to support and want to help. Start feeling better for as little as 87 cents per day. Give us a call at 1-800-731-6327, drop us an e-mail, or send us your question.