When you go to the grocery store, or the mall, or even when you want to buy a car, the phrase "customers are always right" can make serious sense because at that point, you are a customer but one place where this doesn't always hold true is at the hospital because while the person who is with you, helping with the runarounds might be a customer, you the person who is not feeling too well is a patient.
The word doesn't always hold through because it isn't everything you tell your doctor that you want that you actually want. As a patient, what you think is right for you will often turn out not to be right and so you would have to wait and rely on the expertise of the medical practitioners attending to you. Do you know that a bulk of the supplements you take and you think are good for you actually have negative effects? Okay, let's see them one after the other.
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Calcium, good for healthy bones and teeth, required for the proper functioning of the heart and muscles, and it is the most abundant minerals in the body. I am very sure that you are about to close this page because you do not believe that friendly calcium of yours can be doing damage to your body or maybe you just wished you see me, so you can lash out at me for not knowing anything but before you do that, relax and let me explain.
We need about 1000mg for adults and we can get calcium either from our food or from supplements. Getting calcium from diet is usually the way majority of people go and this is what I will advise instead of supplements and this is because there isn't a high spike in calcium levels when we get it from our diet compared to getting it from supplements which can lead to spikes leading to a number of health problems.
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There are people who are at high risk of taking this supplement, especially people who are older since as we grow older we begin to lose bone mass, and our bones become weaker leaving us at a greater risk of fracture or suffering from Osteoporosis and post-menopausal women are even at a greater risk and this is as a result of hormonal changes in the body leading to increased bone loss within the range of 3% to 5% yearly.
In out body, cellular processes breaks down old bones and new bones are created but as we age, the process of creating new bones begins to slow down and over time, we begin to lose more than we create more. Also, as we grow old, as a result of decreased absorption and so many other factors, it is harder for the body to enough calcium so people just want to ensure they have their bones strong so they fall back to calcium supplement to rebuild the bone's strength but our body's health isn't 1+1=2, it is very complex than that and what you would assume will be a logical treatment isn't going to work that way.
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So on the result from researches, instead of seeing clear benefits with the intake of calcium, the result seems to be a mixed case. In a meta analysis published in 2015, result showed that people had reduced risk of fracture with calcium supplements but the studies in this analysis were biased but with other studies with randomized isolated control, the reverse was the case. Other studies showed that people who took calcium supplements had a 30% increase in the chances of getting a heart attack.
Another research showed that people with osteoporosis who took calcium supplement without vitamin D were at a higher risk chance up to 90% of a heart attack. Calcium and vitamin D, what is their relationship? Vitamin D is responsible for regulating calcium in the body. Another study showed that long term use of calcium is associated with high risk of death from all causes which also includes cardiovascular diseases and scientists came to a conclusion that too much intake of the supplement can lead to the buildup of calcium in the walls of the blood vessels leading to the blockage of the blood vessel.
So, if you are thinking to improve your bone health, it is advisable that you do it with dietary options and not with the help of supplements because the supplements you think is doing you good might be fighting a lot with your body, and your body might lose the battle over a long time.
FOR FURTHER READING
https://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h4580
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41413-024-00346-4
https://academic.oup.com/ehjcvp/article/8/6/568/6318367?login=false
https://www.bmj.com/content/341/bmj.c3691.full
https://heart.bmj.com/content/98/12/920
https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jcmg.2020.06.030
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8527562/
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/jaha.116.003815
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/486688
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/1568523
https://www.bmj.com/content/346/bmj.f228
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8435998/