Although the calcium product rush has been led by the pill and tablet market that exploded to $125 million in 1985 from a mere $18 million in 1980, growing concern about calcium deficiency has spilled over from drug store aisles and into grocery markets, prompting the introduction of a growing wave of calcium-enriched food and beverage products, and catapulting calcium deficiency into the nutrition issue of the decade.

Warner-Lambert recently introduced Theracal and Suplical, a pair of chewable calcium tablet supplements that grew out of a "blending" of the Morris Plains, N.J.-based company's confectionary product line (including Dentyne and Trident gums) and its medical line (including Listerine and Halls cough drops), according to a company spokesman. Warner-Lambert has also repositioned its sodium-free Rolaids product-which boasts a hefty slug of calcium-to share in the calcium surge.

For example, [Neill Walsdorf] suggested that some calcium supplements-including the calcium carbonate-based antacids-are not always easily absorbed. Walsdorf claimed that its recent calcium citrate-based product, which was developed by the University of Texas Health Science Center, has achieved between 20% and 60% greater absorption than products featuring the more commonly used calcium carbonate.