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Subscribe to RSSA study out Wednesday suggests that calcium supplements might increase the risk for heart attacks. But this research from Swiss scientists in the British journal Heart is just the type of experiment that often scares people unnecessarily and gives the science of epidemiology a bad name.
The Swiss scientists looked at a group of almost 24,000 people who participated in a European cancer and nutrition study over 11 years. There is the first tip that the research might be less than reliable. The study was set up to look at cancer risk and these scientists are “mining” the data to look for heart disease outcomes. What the researchers unearth is a confusing set of conclusions. In some people calcium intake seems to protect against heart disease. Indeed in the entire population there was no increase in total heart disease. But among those taking large amounts of supplements, they observe an increased number of heart attacks.
There has been concern for some time that too much calcium supplementation might cause heart disease because heart disease can result from a buildup of calcium in the arteries. Several studies of the issue have come to differing conclusions. What is not in doubt is that calcium in the correct amounts is critical for bone heath, but too much can cause health problems, possibly heart disease but for sure a risk of kidney stones and other health problems.
The study, though, should remind people that even though calcium is critical for bone health too much can be a hazard.
As Dr. Ethel Siris of New York-Presbyterian Columbia puts it, "People think more is better in this case in this case more is not better. Enough is enough.”
Getting the right amount of calcium can be a challenge. The government recommends that adults take 1000 mg a day of calcium and women over 50 take 1200. But it says no one over 50 should be taking more than 2000 mg a day.
It is easy to get too much calcium -- 22 percent of the adult US population takes calcium supplements.
Many foods have calcium. A cup of milk, a serving of cheese and a container of yogurt all have more than 300 mg. Some fortified breakfast cereals have as much as 1000 mg per serving.
But for bone health people do need calcium including a supplement. If they are not getting it from food or other sources they need a supplement – just not too much.
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it is truly amazing how little these so called RESEARCHERS know about nutrition or supplements that their doing studys on. calcium needs other nutrients working together for it to work properly.Vit d3 and especially ampel amounts of vit K2 . Vit k2 makes the calcium behave itself and stay in the bone and not in the arteries . so no build up in your cardio system no heart problem that simple.
I would bet a good deal that these researchers know what they are talking about. By the way, calcium, specificly Ca++ ions in the blood, cells, and CSF, are abslolutely necessary for proper function of neurons and muscle contraction, including cardiac muscle.
Raycorb, that's the first thing I thought of too - did they look for a correlation between blood levels of calcium, calcium supplements and Vit D levels? Also, many people who take lots of supplements also limit their fat intake, which can also interfere with Vit D/calcium absorption.
Guys,...this is 1st year medical student level knowledge at most. Yes, everyone knows calcium needs vit D to be absorbed.
I've had two doctors insist I MUST take cacium -- without any test to confirm the need for it. Why? Because I'm a woman who is getting older. Neither asked about daily dairy consumption which, in my case, includes milk and yogurt, and occasionally cheese, as well as other vitamin C rich foods. Nor did they ask if I was taking any vitamins at all or if I engaged in regular weight bearing exercise.
Just a blanket statement: "You need to take this."
When I became eligible for Medicare, I decided to take a bone density test. Results? No problems whatsoever. "Continue whatever you're doing" -- which was nothing more than I ever had, including foregoing popping vitamins.
This type of one-size-fits-all advice reminds me of my father's situation many years ago. He had a light heart attack and his doctor's advice was take it easy. Don't overstress your heart, he was told. (Note that this was standard advice 50 years ago.) He preferred to stay busy so he continued to work on his small farm, taking care of the animals, cleaning the barn with a shovel and wheelbarrow, cutting wood and chopping it by hand, mowing with a push mower, tending a large garden, again largely by hand, and on and on and on.
He lived to be 97. Neighbors suffering from similar conditions who followed their doctor's orders and spent the rest of their lives in rocking chairs lasted only a few years. Note that now doctors often recommend an exercise program for many heart patients.
Remember also the standard advice for years was for menopausal women to pop hormones. They'll keep you young we were told. Eh, maybe ... unless you had a stroke or developed heart disease or an estrogen related cancer.
So what will be the advice about extra vitamin C in the future? Indeed, what will be the advice about statins and cholesterol, with current standard advice even now being questioned in some quarters? Or about regular medications for arthritic conditions, or heaven forbid, joint replacement? Often the pain can largely be alleviated by a non-weightbearing exercise program such as swimming or water aerobics, although admittedly it can take months of regular exercise for definitive results.
And on and on it goes. If I'm truly ill, of course I want a doctor's advice and care. But when it comes to the latest in preventive medicine, I prefer to take a good hard look at the advice offered and ask a lot of questions first. One size does NOT fit all.
What does vitamin C have to do with this? Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) functions in the production of connective tissue and cellular respiration. Calcium is used to form bone and plays key roles in muscle contraction, synaptic transmission, and cell signaling. They don't really interact all that much.
Also, keep in my that science, by its very nature, will keep evolving. What we think is true today could turn out to be wrong tommorrow. But for now, we have to go with our best guess given the evidence. It may turn out to be wrong, but we don't have much choice.
That is not to say, however, that you should not question your doctor. You absolutely should. But keep in mind that what we think we know changes.
Nathalie is correct. One size does not fit all. I've had some surgeries, a few things removed, a few things corrected, etc. I need to take calcium supplements for my general and bone health. I'm careful about how I take them, as well as many other vitamins. (I think I've found the miracle cure for colds, flus, and general illnesses with my combo of vitamins, but that's just me. I've only had one serious illness in the last several years, and it was viral.)
My doctor is relatively happy with my blood work, bone scans, cholesterol, etc. Not everyone is willing to or needs to take the same vitamin combo that I take. One size does not fit all.
Anyone can mine data to come up with the answers they are seeking. It just depends on their agenda. If someone is trying to prove that red hair is caused by eating too many carrots, I am sure that with enough "research," this conclusion could be drawn. We must be careful of outside influences and end result requirements. This is not too say that we shouldn't be careful and watchful of what we do with our health and supplements. We can abuse anything, and it can backfire on us. Many things can be too much and bad for us, even carrots.
hamjam, you sound like a college student.
Nutrition is not an exact science--which is why researchers use large groups in their studies and draw conclusions based on statistical comparisons. Does a percentage increase in something mean that YOU will suffer that fate? No, it does not. Should you conclude there is no danger? No, you should not. Basically this all comes down to, be sensible!
I believe that in the future, statin drugs will be outlawed because they are so dangerous--that is, unless the pharmaceutical companies have their way.
JayEll -
That was pretty much my point. Although, as I read it now, it does sound kind of undergrad-ish. Of course one size does not fit all, but that doesn't mean that there is no reason for these recomendations.
As for statins, cardiac physiology isn't really my area (I'm a brain guy), but I do think that we definitnly need to look at how we develop new drugs and treatments.
Zapper -
The "data-mining" criticism is an important one. One of the problems with these types of studies is that, by the nature of statistics, if you do enough comparisons, you will eventually find a correlation. This is actually a bigger problem (sort of) in larger studies. There are ways to deal with this. You can account for it statistically, but the best way is probably repeatability. If two different studies (using two different data sets) find the same corralations, it is unlikely that they are statistical anomalies.
Confirmation bias is also a problem. If a researcher believes something to be the case, they have a tendency to keep experiemnting until they have a result that supports their theory. This is, in my opinion, a problem that is often underestimated by scientists, but I don't think it is something nefarious. The researcher likely actually believes that carrots cause red hair (it's genetic, by the way), and is more likely to believe that his experimental procedure was bad than that his theory was bad.
Calculating Calcium... While most of us eat a variety of food, we tend to stay with certain meal fare fairly often. This is especially true with lunch and breakfast (although breakfast is regularly skipped by about 50% of Americans). So calculating how many milligrams of calcium, on average, is consumed daily is not difficult. If it is less then 800 mg. or so, a supplement should be taken to reach 1000mg, or 1,200 for women over 50. If one eats fairly high calcium food the need for a supplement is probably unnecessary.
However, most (about 90%) Americans believe they eat healthily. Yet the obesity rate is reaching a critical point for adults and even kids. Rather than isolated stories about calcium, vitamin C, chromium, etc., the media should present nutritional information based on regular meals. A hamburger and milkshake may give one plenty of calcium - but also an inordinate amount of calories - fat calories, saturated fat calories. Pizza is also not a meal (sorry Herman Cain) it's a party snack food and should be eaten in a snack amount and enjoyed occasionally.
News items like the calcium study is fine but it should always be accompanied by information on what a healthy meal should look like - there are lots of examples on-line and elsewhere.
The problem with your suggestion, which I think is a good one, is that the cause of the obesity crisis isn't quite as clear as it seems. The increase in daily caloric intake by the average person is much higher than would be expected given the increase in weight of the average person. If the problem was just that we are eating more, we should be WAY fatter than we are.
I think the problem is more that the media reports on cutting edge science (which, by itself, isn't a problem), but they do it without pointing out that in these kinds of studies, where we find some new phenomena, we don't know what the results mean yet. The is a big, long, ugly, paper-work filled road from the cutting edge to something that can be applied to everyday life.
I realize I am only one person instead of a study but. I have consumed 2-3 gallons of milk a day from my childhood to now. I am 51 years old. Due to a rare virus that attacked my heart in my 20s I get yearly tests on my heart. I have no cardiac artery disease. No narrowing of the heart arteries. This amount of milk is a minimum of just under 10,000 mg of calcium a day. My genetic history is full of heart disease at an early age. Males with heart attacks and death in their 40s and 50s. While I used to get regular exercise I have not since my middle thirties. I developed diabetes in my 40s. I have been on daily NSAIDs since a knee injury when I was 17. So to sum up I have all the risk factors in general and a huge amount of calcium has caused no arterial disease. PS, I don't recommend drinking this much milk, it is too many calories, too much sugar, and unless you drink skim like I have changed to, too much fat. Studies can give false results. As George Carlin said, "Statistically mother's milk leads to Heroin use".
I hope you drink a high quality milk, I'd hate to see what drinking 1 gallon let alone 3 of Kroger milk would do to my health in a week let alone years. Conventional milk is so wretched in this country. I buy farmer's all natural creamery
Thomas Roberts, from your history just as you've revealed it here, I would say that you are overweight. Being overweight is a bigger danger to your heart and health than drinking that much milk. I'm also curious as to why you drink that much milk. It does seem extreme.
Wow! That is between 9,000 mg and 14,000 mg of calcium and between 2,550 and 3,800 calories per day in just the milk alone. Just how large are you Thomas? Thought about taking up Sumo wrestling?
You realize that none of you know a goddamn thing about the guy, other than that he drinks a lot of milk, had a virus, has a healthy heart, and takes aspirin (which, by the way, may be part of the reason why he has a healthy heart), right?
I believe the type of calcium supplement you take has a lot to do with it, as refined studies would probably reveal. Additional supplements like zinc and magnesium also aid in proper utilization of calcium. BTW, boron supplements also seem to reduce the need for taking calcium supplements, without any additional threat to vascular health. - RC
Studies like this seem to be done as an easy way for researchers to "publish or perish". They data mine and just run numbers and see what might seem correlated. However, I always question the mathematics in studies like this because one of the things these studies usually fail to admit is that Correlation is not causation and also fail to address the percentages of correlations that can normally be expected due to random chance alone.
For example, when you ask someone to write out a sequence of flips of a coin as Heads and Tails over 200 flips to try to simulate a random sequence of a fair coin flip (50% H, 50% T), many people will maybe write 3 heads or tails in a row before they think that due to chance, the that runs longer than 3 or even 4 heads or tails in a row would be rare in only 200 flips. However, in 200 flips, the probability of having at least one string of 6 Hs or Ts or longer is 96%. The probability of having a least one string of 5 Hs or Ts or longer is 99.9%. After all, if you flipped a coin and got 10 heads in a row…the probability that the next flip will be heads is still 50%. Many people underestimate the mathematics of random behavior.
Anyways, data mining does not really give the whole story as to any causal links...they just look for correlations, find a journal that will publish it, and make conclusions that cannot be really confirmed. After all, if they did find that people that take supplements were more prone to heart attack, it could also be that the supplements are not causing the heart attacks, but that the people take supplements instead of eating well and exercising thinking it is a shortcut and generally may be not as healthy in the first place as those that do not take supplements. Plus, people that take supplements are generally older and fall into the age category where heart attack is more common. As such, studies like this should be taken with a grain of salt (as too much salt would cause high blood pressure anyways).
Here is my favorite joke about statistics. Three statisticians go target shooting with bow and arrow. The first one shoots an arrow, and it lands 10 feet to the left of the target. The second one shoots, and the arrow lands 10 feet to the right of the target. The third statistician gets really excited and yells, "We hit it! We hit it!"
It isn't the math that is the problem, its the interpertation. Statistics NEVER lie, we just don't understand what the say.
I take a little extra calcium (along with other supplements, but that's another story for another day) that is derived from natural food sources (algae) combined with Vitamin K2, Vitamin D3 and food sourced Magnesium. Most of the cheap supplements you buy at a drug store are possibly toxic IMO, I always buy from companies with a good quality control program in place, certified and ISO compliant etc. Would not recommend overdoing milk-based products. I eat a little goat cheese, better for you than cow derived cheese. That is all, peace out lol.
Sorry, I meant vitamin D, but once I wrote vitamin C, my poor brain stuck with that. Incidentally, your body synthesizes vitamin D, which is often partnered with calcium supplements, from sunlight. But doctors now recommend you get less than 10 or 15 minutes of sun a day to forestall skin cancer -- and take vitamin D, of course. Now understand I won't spend the day at the beach or the pool, or any other prolonged period in sunlight without using sunscreen -- or cook in a tanning bed. But limit your exposure to sunlight to 10 or 15 minutes a day? Ridiculous.
Are you sure that isn't unprotected minutes? Meaning without sunscreen? Cause, if not, thats just sad.
How many times these people leave magnesium out of the discussion is unbelievable. In nature calcium and magnesium are in a 1 to 1 balance and our diets have too much calcium supplementation for some people and excess calcium will block magnesium. You need to get a magnesium challenge test for body levels as a blood test will show proper level as the blood will pull magnesium from the bones, to the bodies detriment to maintain the blood level.
My doctor told me to stop taking calcium supplements because I have very strong, dense bones for a woman my age (early 50's). He mentioned the implications of plaque build up in my heart, and when I told some people this, they laughed at me and thought I was nuts to listen to him. Nice to see an article like this.
I never drank carbonated beverages as a kid or adult. My doctor credits this with my strong bones. I've done research on this, and the carbonation in most soft drinks, along with the sugar, helps to destroy bones. The carbonation in Coke or 7Up is different than in naturally carbonated water like in Italy or France. I have told my kids to cut down on the soda intake so they too can have strong bones as they get older.
i don't think its the carbonation, per se, but more that people drink carbonated beverages in place of drinks like milk that are high in calcium..
That is nuts. Calcium intake has nothing to do with plaque buildup in the arteries. That thinking is ludicrous, honestly
What about beer?