If you take calcium supplements, can this increase your risk for heart problems? The answer might be yes.
Two studies published in the British Medical Journal suggest that calcium supplementation may increase the risk of having a heart attack. While the studies remain controversial, they found an approximate 25% increase in the risk of heart attack for participants who took 500 mg of calcium per day.
One study included 24,000 people between the ages of 35 and 64, and it found that regular calcium supplementation increased the risk of heart attack by an astonishing 86% when compared to participants who took no calcium supplements.
Inorganic calcium sources
This news isn’t really all that new. In order to assess the risk of cardiovascular events or cardiac mortality, your doctor may perform a coronary/cardiac calcium scan. The wrong kind of calcium can end up in the wrong place in your body and result in serious adverse health effects. Many nutritionists caution against calcium from egg shell, oyster shell, limestone, and bone meal.
Our interest in taking calcium supplements generally stems from promotions by organizations that support osteoporosis research, many of which include calcium supplement makers as corporate donors.
Another big change occurred when the World Health Organization redefined normal bone density in 1994. The new standard became the bone density of a 25 year old health adult, which is typically the peak bone mass in a woman’s life cycle. This is called the T-score, and it is used to determine bone density problems in all women regardless of age or geography.
We all experience normal and gradual loss of bone mineral density, but this new definition essentially medicalized a normal aging process. Now doctors encourage women to take inorganic calcium supplements and bone-building drugs to increase bone mineral density. Now healthy women are being diagnosed with osteopenia or osteoporosis, even though their bone density is normal for their age and ethnicity.
This is huge because the #1 and #2 cause of death in women (in America) are heart disease and cancer. Heart attacks and breast cancer are the primary causes of mortality.
When you compare the risk of death as a side effect of bone fracture to death from a calcium-induced heart attack, and/or high bone mineral density associated malignant breast cancer (300% higher risk for those in the top quarter percentile of BMD), the wisdom of calcium supplements comes into question. Osteopenia and osteoporosis prevention and treatment may be unnecessary and contributing to a higher risk of premature death.
When calcium goes to the wrong area in your body
Inorganic, or elemental, calcium needs to be bound to the natural co-factors including lipids, amino acids, and glyconutrients found naturally in food. Without this appropriate delivery system, the calcium may be delivered to areas of your body that can cause problems. Rather than lodging in your bones, the calcium may lodge in your heart arteries and other places. In excessive amounts, it stimulates unnaturally accelerated cell-division (osteoblasts), resulting in higher bone turnover rates later
Or your body may try to eliminate excess calcium through the digestive tract resulting in constipation. It may try to send it through your kidneys resulting in kidney stones. Worse, high levels of calcium can accumulate in the blood (hypercalcemia), which can contribute to destabilizing the atherosclerotic plaque through the formation of a brittle calcium cap on the atheroma, can contribute to thrombosis (clot) formation, hypertension, and perhaps causing arrhythmias/fibrillation and or heart muscle cramping, or coronary artery spasm.
The breasts are also susceptible to ectopic calcification, which is why doctors use the same type of x-rays to determine bone density as they do to determine pathological microcalcifications in the breast. The hydroxyapatitate crystals found in malignant breast tissue may act as a mitogen, which induces cell proliferation. Thus, certain breast calcifications may be a cause of breast cancer tumorous lesions. This may also help to explain why women with the highest bone density (often obtained through massive, lifelong calcium supplementation) have up to 300% higher incidence of malignant breast cancer.
Another phenomenon is becoming more prevalent. “Brain gravel” has been found in autopsied patients. These are pebble-sized calcium deposits in their brains, including the pineal gland. The wide range of existing calcium-associated pathologies, and their increasing prevalence in our modern world, need to be investigated. We need to reconsider the wisdom of mega-dose calcium supplements for a bone density that is normal for age. We need to reconsider the advice that calcium supplement makers are giving to doctors and other health care experts.
These new studies, while controversial, should be considered in light of the new definition of healthy bone density. This new disease model may have consequences that are far worse than any benefit gained by taking inorganic calcium supplements.