Calcium supplements for men--increased risk for cardiovascular disease

Here is an excerpt from the Whole Health Chicago Newsletter.  This is written by Dr. David Edelberg who is the doctor that helped me recover from chronic fatigue (hypothyroid, estrogen dominance, adrenal fatigue and being at "the foothills of fibromyalgia.")



"The issue of calcium supplements and heart disease risk, for example, has been bandied about ever since two reports emerged from Europe last year showing increased cardiovascular risk among women taking calcium supplements. The best guess was that this occurred because the calcium threw off the delicate balance between calcium and magnesium. It was suggested that a combination product would be safer and, in fact, we’ve been encouraging our patients to make this switch.

Nevertheless, women were really nervous about their calcium. An online report (later published in JAMA Internal Medicine) released a National Institutes of Health study that dwarfed the two from Europe. Epidemiologists tracked (ready for this?) 388,229 men and women for 12 years, starting in 1995, to determine if calcium supplements had any effect, positive or negative, with regard to cardiovascular disease. The answer was this: calcium supplements in men increase the risk of death from cardiovascular disease, but the increased risk does not occur in women.

For all my readers and patients who have emailed me this year about whether or not to take a calcium supplement, the answer now depends on several factors:

• Keep in mind that dietary sources of calcium are best (click here for a list) and eat them regularly.
• Next, consider your risks. Did your mother, aunt, or grandmother shrink with age due to osteoporosis (a gradual loss of bone density)? Are you a thin Caucasian of Northern European extraction (at high risk) or a stocky African American (at low risk) or somewhere in between?
• Finally, check (or recheck) your gender. If you’re an at-risk woman, I suggest this supplement formulated by Alan Gaby, MD, author of Preventing and Reversing Osteoporosis."

A Votre Sante (Here's to Your Health), Alix