Public Health Implications of the Declining Calcium Intake in Female Adolescents from a Nigerian University‪.‬

Abstract The importance of calcium for strong bones has long been recognized. It is now also known that adequate calcium intake helps reduce high blood pressure and lessens the symptoms of premenstrual tension as well as possibly protecting against bowel cancer. Over the last several decades, researchers have learnt a great deal about how a nutritionally balanced diet during childhood and adolescence works to prevent the onset of damaging adult diseases. One long--lasting effect of nutritional imbalance during adolescence is osteoporosis, a bone-crippling disease characterized by low bone mass and an increased bone fragility. Once recognized primarily as an elderly woman's disease, osteoporosis is now being acknowledged as a partially preventable 'adolescent' disease because the occurrence of osteoporosis is influenced by bone mass attained during the first three decades of life, as well as the amount of bone lost after menopause. An optimal calcium intake during adolescence, when 50 percent of adult skeletal mass is formed decreases the risk of the crippling fractures caused by osteoporosis.