What does your result mean?
This is your albumin-corrected serum calcium range.
If you are:
- In range: You’re within the typical adult reference interval (about 2.20–2.60 mmol/L or 8.8–10.4 mg/dL). Keep steady habits: maintain a balanced diet with calcium sources (dairy, fortified alternatives, leafy greens), ensure vitamin D sufficiency, stay well hydrated, and try to have repeat labs under similar conditions (time of day, fasting, hydration).
- Below range: This suggests low corrected calcium. Practical steps: increase calcium-rich foods and consider meeting daily calcium needs (~1,000–1,200 mg/day from diet/supplements as appropriate), ensure adequate vitamin D intake/exposure, avoid excessive alcohol, review medications that may lower calcium, and recheck when well hydrated and at rest. If you notice symptoms like tingling, muscle cramps, or twitching, prioritize consistent intake and retesting.
- Above range: This suggests high corrected calcium. Practical steps: review and reduce high-dose calcium or vitamin D supplements unless prescribed, hydrate well, moderate large intakes of calcium-fortified products and antacids, and recheck levels when rested and hydrated. Watch for symptoms like fatigue, constipation, or excessive thirst, and adjust intake accordingly.
Note: Targets are guides, not medical advice. Interpret your result alongside symptoms and known conditions, and adjust nutrition, supplements, and hydration as needed.
How is this calculated?
Evidence baseline:
The calculator uses the albumin-correction (Payne) approach to estimate what your total calcium would be at a standard albumin of 40 g/L (4.0 g/dL), which better reflects physiologically active calcium when albumin is abnormal. SI: Ca_corr (mmol/L) = Ca_meas + 0.02 × (40 − albumin[g/L]); Conventional: Ca_corr (mg/dL) = Ca_meas + 0.8 × (4 − albumin[g/dL]).
Sized to you:
Your corrected value is personalized from your measured total calcium and your serum albumin. For every 1 g/L albumin below 40, about 0.02 mmol/L is added (or 0.8 mg/dL per 1 g/dL albumin below 4); if albumin is above the standard, the same amount is subtracted.
Activity adjustment:
The formula itself doesn’t change with activity, but hard exercise, dehydration, or acute stress can concentrate blood (raising total calcium and albumin) or shift acid–base balance, which can transiently alter results. Checking when rested and well hydrated can reduce variability.
Environment & day-to-day:
Hydration status, high heat, acute illness, pregnancy (hemodilution), and medications (for example, thiazide diuretics, lithium, high-dose vitamin D or calcium) can influence total and corrected calcium day to day. Acid–base changes can also shift calcium binding to albumin.
Why a range?
Calcium varies normally across people and across the day, and lab methods have small differences. Showing a range reflects biological and measurement variability and avoids implying a single “perfect” number.
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