Abstract
The content of mineral relative to organic matrix in bone is remarkably constant under physiological and most pathological conditions as bone tissue is being formed and resorbed in toto. This chapter describes the major pathways of calcium metabolism. It illustrates general relations between absorption of ingested and digestive juice calcium and excretion of endogenous and exogenous faecal calcium. The study of the rate of calcium accretion cannot be carried out by conventional techniques and requires the use of tracer kinetics. Body calcium represents two distinct and essentially independent moieties: (1) an exchangeable calcium pool and (2) a nonexchangeable calcium pool. The chapter illustrates a two-compartmental open system model of calcium turnover, compatible with a two-exponential plasma disappearance curve of calcium tracer. Parathyroid hormone (PTH) and thyrocalcitonin (TCT) are the two parts of a dual hormonal mechanism in the homeostatic regulation of ionized calcium concentration in the blood plasma. The major pathways of inorganic phosphate metabolism resemble those of calcium metabolism, though they differ in several points quantitatively. The chapter presents the relationship between the various forms of collagen and the urinary excretion of hydroxyproline. In the living organism, pyrophosphate has the role of a calcification regulator.
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