Re: protein and bone health

What does all this mean?

J Nutr. 2003 Mar;133(3):862S-865S.

Dietary animal and plant protein and human bone health: a whole foods approach.

Again they are reading in to a lot of things that are not there.  For example, they mention soy, corn, wheat and rice having the same sulfur content as some animal proteins leading to bone loss.  But they leave out other factors such as the high level of phytoestrogens found in some of these plants that have been shown to inhibit bone loss.

On the other hand they claim the calcium from milk helps to buffer the acidity from the proteins in milk preventing bone loss.  There are several flaws with this claim.  First of all calcium absorption is blocked by protein.  This is why milk is such as poor source of calcium.  Just because it is high in calcium this does not mean it is absorbable.  This is akin to swallowing ball bearings to get your iron.  Milk is high in phosphorus though, which is the previous study by this same person claimed was acidic and caused bone breakdown.  Unlike the calcium, phosphorus absorption is not inhibited by protein.