Greater Heart Risk and Stroke from Calcium Supplements in Postmenopausal Women

A new study in New Zealand has found that calcium supplements can increase the risk of heart attack and stroke amongst postmenopausal women.

Researchers at the University of Auckland conducted this study for a period of five years. During this period they studied 1,471 healthy postmenopausal women, who had been postmenopausal for more than five years. Of these 732 were given calcium supplements and 739 given placebos. They were followed up every six months for five years. The mean age of women in this study was 74 years.

For this study, researchers also checked hospital admissions record and reviewed all death certificates for study participants in order to identify any unreported events. Moreover the study excluded women who were receiving treatment for osteoporosis, already taking calcium supplements, or who were suffering from any major ongoing disease.

The findings as published in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal states that
31 out of the 732 women who were given calcium supplement suffered heart attacks, as against 21 women from the group of 739 women who were given placebo. Apart from this, 34 women from the calcium group and 25 women from the placebo group suffered strokes.
According to the researchers although the findings were not conclusive, the results of this study suggests that high calcium intakes might have an adverse effect on vascular health. Moreover researchers are of the opinion that if other studies also reveal similar results then the beneficial effects of calcium of bone will certainly be overshadowed. However, they are also of the opinion that the harmful effects of calcium should be balanced against the likely benefits of calcium on bone, particularly in elderly women

Studies such as these that highlights the detrimental effects of calcium on postmenopausal women, in fact questions the excessive importance given to calcium supplements for postmenopausal women. Till now it was believed that calcium supplements helps in maintaining bone health, and could also provide protection against vascular disease by lowering levels of LDL cholesterol, the so-called "bad cholesterol", in the blood. Hence calcium supplements were commonly prescribed to postmenopausal women. However, with such studies, the importance of calcium supplements on postmenopausal women needs to be reinvestigated.