“I knew it could be done! Specialized Iron does not block Calcium uptake. Efficient Calcium allows for a smaller dose. ———- is exciting and it is changing lives!”

The above is quoted from a recent promotional email sent out by a company that makes “bariatric vitamins”. I removed the name for the moment because the purpose of me writing this is not to go after the company, but just help dispel some … incorrect … information.

Do you remember the little phrase we’re taught as kids to help in our spelling? “I before E, except after C?” Well, when it comes to the absorption of supplements, I is ALWAYS after C. In other words, calcium blocks the uptake of iron, not the other way around. In face, Calcium is sort of king of the hill, or a vitamin bully. It has a tendency to block the uptake of a number of other micronutrients.

Calcium is the most abundant mineral in our bodies. Heck, I think everyone knows it’s the basis of our bones and teeth and all. And in some ways that’s also part of the problem when it comes to supplementation. If we’re not getting enough in our diet, our body will start to take what it needs from our bones, often making it very difficult to know that we’re not getting enough of it until it’s too late. That’s why calcium supplementation is stressed so highly for bariatric patients, so pretty much everyone reading this should be familiar with calcium pills. They’re fricken huge, right?

The only way to make them smaller is compressing them more (which can only be done to a certain point), or putting less calcium in each pill, but then you have to take more pills. It’s just the physical properties of Calcium, it’s “big boned” so to speak. And it uses it’s size to it’s advantage when it comes to getting absorbed. It’s able to muscle it’s way to the head of the line, playing bouncer and keeping some other nutrients from being absorbed… or at least absorbed as well as they would be without Calcium playing gate-keeper and key master all in one.

All joking aside, it’s true. Here’s a quote from livestrong.com

A Kansas University Medical Center study reported in the January 1991 issue of “The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition” found that taking calcium with iron supplements reduced iron absorption when taken with food and also decreased absorption of dietary non-heme iron.

Now, before you start thinking Calcium simply has it out for Iron… they also mention the following:

While animal studies show that calcium interferes with zinc, human studies don’t always give the same results. A Tuft’s University study reported in the June 1997 issue of “The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition” measured the effect of calcium supplementation in postmenopausal women on zinc absorption. Subjects took calcium doses of either 890 mg or 1,258 mg over a 36-day period. In both groups, zinc absorption and zinc levels in the body were reduced by approximately 2 mg per day. A separate study of men and women ages 21 to 69 assessed the effect of calcium given with or without zinc on zinc absorption. Giving calcium with the meal but not adding supplemental zinc reduced zinc absorption by 50 percent.

And it’s not just livestrong.com saying so – check out what MIT has to say about it:

Copper is needed for normal iron metabolism. Vitamin A assists with iron in elininating anemia. Zinc and iron taken together may limit the absorption of zinc. Calcium and iron combined in a meal may decrease the absorption of iron.

You can find many other examples of this out there, from lots of credible sources… so the bottom line is, taking calcium and iron together effects the absorption of that iron. Not the other way around.

and no… I’m not talking zombies here or anything… I said “feed”, not “eat”.

There was a recent study out of Chicago that is suggesting that low levels of B12 in older folks may be tied to decreased cognitive ability. Now this is an early study… and of course it’s full of caveats, but according to a story on UPI:

The study, published in the journal Neurology, found having high levels of four of five markers for vitamin B12 deficiency was associated with having lower scores on the cognitive tests and smaller total brain volume.

Study author Christine C. Tangney of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago also said;

“Our findings definitely deserve further examination,” Tangney said in a statement. “It’s too early to say whether increasing vitamin B12 levels in older people through diet or supplements could prevent these problems, but it is an interesting question to explore. Findings from a British trial with B vitamin supplementation are also supportive of these outcomes.”

In case you’ve been under a rock somewhere, you should know by now that Bariatric Advantage now has a fourth flavor in their line of Calcium Chewy Bites – caramel. They debuted this flavor right around the time of the WLSFA event last May, and you couldn’t take two steps around the main hall without it seeming like someone was having themselves a caramel calcium chew.

So yea, there’s also been lots of reviews of them in the weeks that followed (like this one and this one), and I was going to do one, but ya know… what else was I really going to add to the mix other than saying something bout it being “dude-worthy” or giving them “two dudes up” or something. So I sat back and enjoyed the samples I got, picked up a bag and added it to my own regular rotation and just sort of chilled.

But ya know what, I think I do have something to add to the mix here. See, if you go waaaaaay back, I wrote about the other three flavors that Bariatric Advantage has out there, chocolate, lemon and raspberry. In that review I likened them to Tootsie Rolls, Starburst and Laffy Taffy.

I still think of them like that, and of course the new ones are .. well.. caramels. Sorta like the Kraft ones you would buy and melt down to make caramel apples with in the fall (I hear someone actually tried melting some down and making apple dip with a bunch of them!). So again, we’re back to what is there new that I can offer?

See, I had a bag of each flavor of the chews, all four of them, and when I just had chocolate and lemon, before they were color coding the wrappers, I kept them in separate containers so I could tell them apart. Now though, I just dump them all in a dish and grab a couple each morning to toss in with my lunch. And the “candy” flavors make them sort of a nice little afternoon treat. But you know what, just because you take two of these at at time, doesn’t mean you have to take two of the SAME flavor at a time. This is where we get to the Rolos. Some of the flavors mix better than others, but one of my favorites is taking one chocolate and one caramel… eat them together and it’s like popping a Rolo in your mouth.

So bada-bing, bada-boom. Not only are you getting a nice dose of calcium (and being from Bariatric Advantage, you know it’s good stuff in the nutrient department), but you can help kick a bit of that candy craving at the same time. Heck of a deal eh?

My favorite combo is probably the raspberry-lemon, with maybe chocolate-raspberry coming in third. But hey, feel free to mix and match to your hearts content and find your own favorite… then maybe let me know what it is in the comments below. And maybe hit up the BTV eStore to order yourself some caramel (or other flavor) calcium chewy bites!

Oh, and just for kicks, check out this old Rolo commercial…

I met Mike of Healthy Brands, Inc. in Vegas last month – he was manning the table at the WLSFA Meet & Greet for their Reviva products – a liquid multi-vitamin and a liquid calcium.

He was offering samples that day of both… and since they were free, what the heck, I gave them a shot… figuratively and literally. He was doling them out in little plastic, well.. shot glasses (we got one in our event goodie bag as well).

The multi-vitamins is fruit-punch flavored. It was decent.. not overly sweet or anything. The stats on them look pretty decent too… the Vitamin A, for example, is not beta carotene, so it’s workable for RNY and DS types, but the amounts don’t stack up to most of the bariatric products for bypass types out there… but seem pretty comparable to stuff geared towards those with bands.

The calcium is a blueberry flavor, and it’s very good. I picked up some of this when I got home (Mike offered me a bottle in Vegas but I only had carry-on luggage and wouldn’t have been able to get it on the plane). It’s much thicker than the multi-vitamin and doing a “shot” doesn’t work very well. You’re better off mixing it in to something, like a protein shake, some yogurt, or something else you don’t mind that bit of berry flavor being added to. And it’s calcium citrate, in case you were wondering, so you’re good to go no matter what surgery type you’ve had.

Or you can do like I do, and take a swig right from the bottle.

The recommended daily dose for adults is 2 tablespoons (or 1 fluid oz) for either one, though that gets you 1000iu of calcium. When I brought up the recommendation most folks give you regarding doing just 500iu of calcium at a time, and his response that while yes, after about 500-600iu you may not fully absorb the remainder, it trails off slowly, and it’s not like it just cuts it off at that point. So for someone with a normal stomach, I suppose downing it all in one dose is fine, you’ll get your remaining calcium from other food sources during the day. For you pouched types that are already doing multiple-doses anyways, I’d say do the 1tablespoon of this at a time… get your money’s worth out of this stuff.

Speaking of servings and cost, the bottles are 64oz so you’ll just just over 30 servings from a bottle that’s gonna cost you just over $15 (available online as well as through Sam’s Club and Costco). So on that front, they’re not the cheapest per dose you’ll find, but there are some out there that run more too.

Bottom line… I think they’re very good products, both from my (admittedly still limited) knowledge of the nutrients as well as from a taste and cost side of things. BUT – while being liquid is a great thing, especially for early post-ops, it’s also a bit of a disadvantage for folks that usually need to take multiple doses throughout a day. It’s not portable. So yea, while I tend to use the calcium as my morning dose, I still rely on other products for my other doses during the day.

Be sure to check them out online at revivanutrition.com and follow them on Twitter.

Like many folks, I keep my vitamins in the kitchen. Hand place to grab a glass of water when taking them. Many also keep them in the bathroom for pretty much the same reason. Making taking their supplements part of their daily routine.

But according to this article from smartplanet.com based on a Purdue study, you may want to move your stuff outta there… cause moisture could be making your supplements less effective.

I recently read on another forum about a bariatric supplement company that came out with some new protein products. Right away people were asking about samples and the company rep said they don’t have any at this time in order to keep production costs, and thusly cost to the buyers down.

By the time I got through the entire thread, something struck me… nobody had asked for a FREE sample.

Sure, maybe that was in their minds at the time they asked, and from the reply by the rep it is how they took it, and while free is always good it is not always what we want.

We all know protein shakes can suck. I’m sure we’ve all gone through powder after powder looking for the one or two that we can not just tolerate, but actually like. Or maybe we suffer with one we tolerate for weeks, because it’s not like most of us can be shelling out bucks to buy another 2 or 3 pound tub just cause we didn’t care of the last flavor.

So yea, give us sample… sizes.

Like I said, I love free stuff as much as the next guy, but I don’t NEED free stuff. Package your flavors in single-serve packets that I can buy… and not just one or two flavors, all your flavors.

Ok, yea… I know about production costs. Where in bulk you may be able to get something for as little as a buck a serving, you start individual packets and that cost is likely to go at least double. So while I’m not asking you to take a bath on it by giving it to me for free, at least price it at or maybe just above cost so I can order some to try out. If I find one I really like, odds are I’ll be back to buy the larger containers.

On top of that, I may even keep buying some single serve packets for use when I travel, take to work, etc…

The same goes for vitamins and such, though I think most of the major players out there do give free samples and sell sampler packs of that stuff.

So yea, if you make stuff for use WLS types… steal this idea! Please!

Photo by andvic