Dietary intake of calcium, phosphorus and magnesium in a Northern Italian community.

Minerals are essential micronutrients for growth, development, and maintenance of healthy tissues, the long term insufficient intake of minerals may lead to bone demineralization and often requires the use of food supplements. The ratios of certain minerals intake like calcium and phosphorus are also proved to can affect the bioavailability of calcium and even lead to adverse health consequence. This study was designed to explore the dietary sources of calcium (Ca), phosphorus (P), and magnesium (Mg) and the ratios between different minerals (Ca/P). We measured the content of these elements in foods composing typical Italian diet using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry and we estimated their daily dietary intakes assessing through a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire specifically developed within the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study in a Northern Italian Community. In 890 analyzed food samples the main contributors to calcium are milk and dietary products, dry fruits, legumes and sweet products. Important sources of phosphorus are represented by dry fruits, legumes, milk and dairy products and meat. While dry fruits, legumes, cereals and fish symbolized the most important sources for magnesium. In our Italian population sample, the estimated median (interquartile range) dietary daily intakes are 786.3 (592.2-1062.7) μg/day for calcium; 1291.7 (1017.2-1591.4) mg/day for phosphorus and 323.2 (260.3-396.6) mg/day for magnesium. The calcium-phosphorus (Ca/P) ratio in this study was 0.63 (0.52-0.73). These values are in agreement with those suggested by European and International recommended intake for adult population, with the exception of calcium which is slightly lower than recommended values and suggest that this population does not present nutritional deficiencies requiring any supplementation.