Sorry for the delay. I am sporting 2 broken arms and still trying to fight the good fight.

Calcium impacts your metabolic rate via inter-cellular activity. You can explore the topic at NIH and other sites (given NIH totes the party line)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=calcium+AND+obesity+AND+overweight+AND+weight+gain

We measure the calcium uptake in our plants by symptom, primitive, but it works. Many plants require adequate levels of calcium to produce. For instance, my zucchini plants failed to mature fruit, manifesting in end-rot. End-rot is from a calcium deficiency. My hard squash did the same. Interestingly enough, tomatoes which also can be vulnerable to end-rot we grew in green-houses and were perfectly normal, in fact we experienced a bumper crop. We did supplement the soil with egg shells, milk, and organic calcium addendum's but failed to be able to correct the calcium deficiency.

pH in humans is around 7.41. A good overview of pH and the body is:
http://www.relfe.com/health_natural/pH_human_body_balance_health_level_1.html

From the trenches,
Celeste