Posted on 09/18/2016 5:04:13 PM PDT by blam
WEDNESDAY, Aug. 17, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Taking calcium supplements with the hope of keeping osteoporosis at bay may raise an older woman's risk of dementia, a new study suggests.
And that seems particularly true if a woman has already sustained an event causing poor blood flow to the brain (cerebrovascular disease), such as from a stroke, researchers said.
The study can't prove cause-and-effect. However, dementia risk was seven times higher in female stroke survivors who took calcium supplements, compared to women with a history of stroke who didn't use the supplements, the findings showed.
The risk of dementia also was three times higher in women with white matter brain lesions who took calcium supplements, compared to women with white matter lesions who didn't take the supplements. Lesions in white matter tissue are evidence of a mini-stroke or some other problem impeding blood flow within the brain.
Because the study can't prove causality, "women with cerebrovascular disease and osteoporosis should discuss this new information with their clinicians," said lead researcher Dr. Silke Kern. She is a neuropsychiatric researcher at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.
Kern noted that some guidelines have recommended that seniors consume 1,000 to 1,200 milligrams of calcium a day to prevent osteoporosis.
But, other research has suggested that calcium supplements may increase a woman's risk of heart attack or stroke, Kern said.
She stressed that the findings apply only to calcium supplements. Calcium from food appears to affect the brain differently than calcium from supplements, Kern explained, and appears to be safe or even protective.
(Excerpt) Read more at health.com ...
“And I *am* feeling a little demented lately. :-)”
As long as you aren’t feeling deplorable, everything should work out fine.
Mg is important, but it’s vitamin K2 that prevents arteries from calcifying.
:) Thanks. I should have read your response before my last reply.
[There is no arguing with ALLCAPS and exclamation points.]
I would not put stock in any comment that cursed GOD in ALLCAPS.
I have heard a thousand conflicting reports over the last 40 years.
God will take me when He sees fit.
I eat meat and veggies ‘cuz I like them. Don’t take supplements and pills.
Like milk, eggs, bacon and butter. Wish I could get ahold of some Amish butter that I used to get when I was in Illinois. That was out of the world.
So humans eating oyster shells isn’t “natural”? Who knew?
I used to tell my little old lady patients in Family Practice about deer, elk, moose, other herbivores who grew enormous amounts of bone every year and shed the bone in December-February. Where were they getting all the calcium for all that bone mass?
If you were a ruminant animal with a gut designed (yeah, I can dabble in a little teleology here, I once taught evolutionary biological science as a TA for Chris Wills) to maximize protein and calcium absorption with the occasional foray into the local salt lick you’d get all the calcium you needed to grow two to twenty pounds of bone every year just from leafy green vegetables, buds and bark.
Of course you’d drop little piles of cocoa-puffs everywhere you went like an IBS patient crapping bridge mix but you wouldn’t get osteoporosis or dementia. Run over by a car maybe, but no dementia.
But can you really eat a bucket of greens every day and not bloat like Michael Moore on a whole grain diet?
Not really. Looks like science still doesn’t have all the answers. But they do try to tell us what the climate will be like in 50 years. Go figure.
Pays your money, takes your chances.
I stopped taking extra calcium because all it did was make my bunion bigger!
Stopped taking it, and my bunion stopped growing. I get my calcium through milk, cheese and leafy greens and other veggies each day.
Works for me. I’m gonna die of something, someday. *SHRUG*
I take liquid Calcium/Mag and k everyday. I must say, it does mess with my digestive system a bit. I have “bone loss”. I do much research and pay attention to what my body tells me.
It is the calcium that kills my tum, mag helps me sleep, D keeps my breast cancer at bay and the K2 helps the uptake.
I do not suggest taking any supplement that results in a higher dose than the RDA, unless there is a medically valid reason for doing so.
When I was a child, back in the 60s/70s, this big “health food” movement started, and people started taking megadoses of all kinds of vitamins and minerals. But with vitamins and minerals, either you get enough or you don’t. If you don’t, you need to increase your intake. If you do, increasing your intake does nothing to improve your health, and may be deleterious. I think the studies (such as the one referenced here) that show the deleterious effects of taking more micronutrients than your body needs are now seeing the light of day. I am glad for it, too, since people don’t want to hear that, for example, taking 10 times as much vitamin C as you really need can cause kidney damage.
I take 4,000 U of vitamin D every day. This is because blood tests show that I do not have much vitamin D in my blood. I am not sure why I have a deficiency—I’ve had blood tests showing low vit. D even when I am tanned—but I take the supplements.
My mother is 96 with dementia and has been taking calcium supplements for years. Now they tell us this.
Oh well, a study came out not long ago saying statin drugs were actually bad for you while fighting high cholesterol
We take D3 and K2 together.
I will scream. Very loudly cause that’s what I do best.
Oh , that’s my plan to the question posed in your tagline. :)
Same here on the D and K. I take a sublingual that contains both.
I take my calcium the old fashion way, by consuming yogurt .
Taking 80 mg of Atorvastatin. Guess that's why that 24 miles I walked over the last 3 days hurt my feet.
Think you are the first to respond on that. To be honest, since that movie I have never bought a shower curtain that is solid. They have to be see-through.
BBB
Was this medical study financed by the Trial Lawyer’s Association?
Just lost my next to the last uncle to pneumonia at 99.5 years old. Alert and aware; watched Fox News but was lifelong democrat.
I’m wondering if they considered whether the supplements were lead contaminated like many have been reported to be. Lead can cause dementia and more.
When is B-12 going to be linked to my suggestive language at the local Bar?
(It may not be solicited ... but is rarely accepted... just every once in awhile it works and is supplemented with breakfast)
It is really gonna suck when EVERYTHING is Illegal and I will be too old to hold up my end!.
(gotta be a Tagline in there somewhere)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.