Calcium Supplements Lead to Heart Attacks?

Calcium supplements lead to 31% increase in heart attack risk.  These were the findings of a study published this past Thurs (July 29th) in a British Medical Journal (http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/341/jul29_1/c3691).  However, these results are very misleading.

Why are these results misleading?  First, this was not a stand-alone study, but rather a "meta-analysis".  Meaning, they took the results of other studies and reported their findings based on these other studies.  Now, you're probably saying, "Well, wouldn't that CONFIRM the results?  Aren't they essentially creating an 'average' of all these studies?".  See, that's the problem.  They didn't use that many studies.  Only 15 to be exact.  And of those 15, their findings on the cardiovascular outcomes came from only 5 of those 15 studies.

Andrew Shao, a PhD and VP of for the Council of Responsible Nutrition was quoted, "...seven of the 15 trials evaluated had no, or incomplete, data on cardiovascular outcomes, and only five of the 15 studies accounted for almost all of the cardiovascular outcomes".  And further, "...because the researchers chose to exclude any trials administering calcium plus vitamin D, many large, important trials—including the Women’s Health Initiative, which found calcium plus vitamin D had no effect on the risk of coronary heart disease or stroke—were not included". (http://www.crnusa.org/CRNPR10_BMJCalciumMetaAnalysis72910.html)

So you can see to the casual observer this may appear to say "Don't Take Calcium Supplements".  But when you start to dig into the study a bit more you can reach other conclusions.

Secondly, this "study" looked ONLY at the affect of calcium supplementation.  And the main issue was that taking calcium supplements led to a higher concentration of calcium in the blood.  Here's the problem with that.  Calcium need magnesium to help it get into bones, and thus, out of the blood.  This study did not look at the affect of taking calcium along with magnesium.  Nor did it look at taking calcium with Vitamin D, which has already shown benefits in other studies where both were administered.

Long story short, when you see or read things like this on the news, please do yourself a favor and either do some additional research.  Try not to depend solely upon the opinions of others.  Thus the reason why I included links in the above post.  The more information you have, the better equipped you are to make a decision that is best for YOU.

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