Calcium is an essential for all living things. Calcium is important for hormonal activities and essential for fertilization and cell division. The element also controls the mechanical stability of the walls and membranes in cells and stimulates muscle contortions.
Bone is the body’s calcium nutrient reserve. Mineralization of bones and teeth is the function of calcium that demands the lion’s share of the mineral (approximately 99% of the total body calcium). Nevertheless the small amount of remaining body calcium essential to the function of many tissues, including the clotting of blood; the stimulation of secretory activity in practically all endocrine, exocrine, and neurocrine cells; and the regulation of contraction and relaxation in cardiac and skeletal muscle.
The skeleton is an important reservoir of calcium, serving both to maintain plasma calcium concentrations and to make optimal use of ingested calcium.
It serves both functions mainly by adjusting the balance between bone formation-transfer mineral from blood to bone, and bone resorption-transfer mineral from bone to blood.
In human body, calcium accounts for 2-4% of gross body weight. A 60 g adult body adult female typically contains about 1000-1200 g (25-30 mol) of calcium in her body.
More that 99% of that total is in bones and teeth. About 1 g is in the plasma and extracellular fluid – ECF bathing the cells and 6-8 g in the tissues themselves.
Human health is dependent on homeostasis. When homeostasis is altered, the people can become sick, even die.
In calcium homeostasis, which occurs in early adulthood (about 35 years of age), the amount of calcium deposited in bone is the same as the amount reabsorbed. In the growing child the deposition of calcium increases and occurs in proportion to bone growth. Skeletal turnover, although less rapid during adulthood, continues throughout life an somewhere around the fourth decade, the turnover becomes dominated by bone resorption.
Research indicates a positive calcium balance can occur in the skeleton as a whole for approximately 10 to 15 years after cessation of linear growth. Roughly from age 18 to 35 years, a person can build skeletal massiveness, reaching full skeletal at around 35 years.
Calcium is involved in the function of excitable tissues. Before the heart can ‘beat’, special cells in a region of the heart called the SA node must spontaneously initiate an electrical pulse. Calcium is fundamentally involved in initiating the impulse the SA (sinoatrial) node. This impulse the will stimulates the rest of the heart to contract.
Calcium also involved in the contraction of the heart muscles also the contraction of the skeletal muscles.
Functions of Calcium in Human Body
