Calcium Supplements: Bone-maybe: Heart-no
Calcium, long (and seemingly incorrectly) considered the panacea for bone health in older woman is finally moving out of the limelight. With very compelling evidence mounting over the past decade that vitamin D is more of a key in terms of bone maintenance than is calcium for most people, at the same time, there are signs that perhaps calcium is not all is it cracked up to be as a supplement. What is next? Concern over fluoride for tooth health 
hmmm….
Just another reason to question everything that modern medicine assumes. Eggs good one day, bad the next, etc. Learn how to read the research, and determine your own truth!
Calcium supplements are commonly prescribed for skeletal health, but a recent trial suggested they might increase rates of heart attack (myocardial infarction) and cardiovascular events in healthy older women…
…They found that calcium supplements were associated with about a 30% increased risk of heart attack and smaller, non-significant, increases in the risk of stroke and mortality.
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Thanks for posting this. Yet another reason to get as much nutrient as possible from food sources. It’s my understanding that, with an adequate amount of vit D, bodies do a pretty good job of self-regulating how much calcium gets absorbed from food. Not so good with supplements. Understanding changes daily, just like eggs and vit E! As always, stay tuned for next week’s/month’s/year’s meta-analysis….
The vitamin D story continues to unfold, with pretty profound implications. Books like “The Whole-Food Guide to Strong Bones: A Holistic Approach” surely take some more progressive approaches to bone health.
Ultimately, the lesson may be that there are very few silver bullets, even in supplementation. Supplements will never take the place of good nutrition, and good nutrition may not be what conventional wisdom tells us!
I have always been against calcium supplementation. Calcium needs to be in an already absorbed form ie in nuts, seeds and leafy greens for the body to absorb it. Calcium dumping is a serious health risk when calcium is not properly absorbed from supplementation. Also let’s not forget that cod liver oil provides the essential A and D as well as omega 3. Keep it simple I say!
One concern about Cod liver oil though Connie- The proportion of A to D is weighted too heavy on the A side- this can have issues as well…
An interesting discussion on the topic can be found here: http://trusted.md/blog/vreni_gurd/2009/01/18/the_cod_liver_oil_controversy#axzz0vGzwBpDE