Friday, October 5, 2012

One Does Not Simply Take Calcium Supplements


You know that feeling you get when you see someone and your heart starts pounding like a djembe until it seems like it’s going to break and then suddenly stops?  Well now you can get that feeling simply by taking calcium supplements, according to the International Business Times (IBT) and Swiss researchers from the University of Zurich.  The IBT article “Calcium Supplements Could Increase Risk of Heart Attack by 86%” is making its way around the worldwide web.  The “study concludes supplements should be taken 'with caution' and boosting calcium offers no significant health benefit” according to the article details provided by IBT. 

The researchers supposedly found that people who took regular calcium supplements had an 86% higher risk of having a heart attack.  They also determined that subjects who took only calcium supplements had a two-times greater risk of a heart attack than those subjects who abstained from calcium supplements.  The overall conclusion drawn from two professors from the University of Auckland (Ian Reid and Mark Bolland) was that "the evidence is also becoming steadily stronger that it is not safe, nor is it particularly effective" to take calcium supplements.

A similar article reporting on the same study was also found on Science Daily as well as the British Medical Journal (BMJ).  The link and information about the article is provided below:
M. J. Bolland, A. Grey, A. Avenell, G. D. Gamble, I. R. Reid. Calcium supplements with or without vitamin D and risk of cardiovascular events: reanalysis of the Women's Health Initiative limited access dataset and meta-analysis. BMJ, 2011; 342 (apr19 1): d2040 DOI:10.1136/bmj.d2040

Calcium seems to be elevating itself in the public eye through studies such as these.  I believe it is too early to conclude anything since the studies are relatively new and do not address all of the variables from what I can tell.  Here is the hyperlink to the website:   http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/344811/20120524/calcium-supplements-heart-attack-risk.htm.  See, read, and study it for yourself.  And in the meantime, enjoy these memes.  Thanks!

Nathan










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