Stahl thinks the research is relevant to the infant food industry and suggests the significance of the nutritional status of breastfeeding mothers. It also points to a need for greater emphasis in very early life on bone health, not just during those times when children are growing most rapidly.

"While the importance of calcium nutrition throughout childhood and adolescence is well-recognized, our work suggests that calcium nutrition of the neonate may be of greater importance to lifelong bone health, due to its programming effects on mesenchymal stem cells," Stahl reported at the recent Experimental Biology 2010 meeting in Anaheim. "It also points to a potential paradigm shift in which health professionals might want to begin thinking about osteoporosis not so much as a disease of the elderly, but instead as a pediatric disease with later onset.

"For me," Stahl said, "the biggest message is that calcium nutrition, or mineral nutrition as a whole, needs to be a priority from day one. Early life nutrition is setting children up physiologically for the rest of their lives."

Source: North Carolina State University