MedicalConspiracies- Breast Cancer and Heart Attacks: A Deadly Side Effect of Calcium Supplements

Breast Cancer and Heart Attacks: A Deadly Side Effect of Calcium
Supplements?
January 30, 2012 | 380,553 views

By Dr. Mercola

Calcium is one of the most popular dietary supplements on the
market, largely because of the widely circulated mantra that mega-doses
of this mineral are essential for building and maintaining healthy bones.

As a result, many people believe that taking a calcium supplement
is a simple way to prevent bone fractures associated with osteoporosis.

What they have not been told is that while you can force increased
bone mineral density with calcium supplements, you cannot be sure that
this will result in greater bone strength.

Be Careful In Interpreting Bone Tests Results

Bone density, while an excellent measurement of compressive
strength, does not reveal tensile strength, i.e. whether or not your
bone will resist breaking from being pulled or stretched, as commonly
occurs in a fall or similar trauma.

Moreover, "osteoporosis," as presently defined by bone scans (DXA
scan) using the T-score, inappropriately defines "normal bone density"
according to the standard of a 25-year old, young adult.

In other words, if you are 40, 50, or even 100, the T-score-based
system says your bones are not normal, or even diseased if they are not
as dense as they were when you were a young adult.

If in fact they used the age-appropriate Z-score, most cases of
"osteopenia," and many cases of "osteoporosis," would suddenly disappear
because they were inappropriately classified from the start.

Do Calcium Supplements Predispose You to Breast Cancer?

Ultimately, the "calcium is good for your bones" mantra is yet
another example of a good theory gone wrong, and represents how broadly
deluded the mainstream medical community is about bone health and the
nature of osteoporosis, and its highly fabricated twin condition
"osteopenia."

There are actually a number of studies indicating that mass market
calcium supplements increase your risk for cardiovascular incidents and
other problems, while offering little benefit to your bones. Only
because something can increase your bone density: eating what amounts to
chalk or pulverized bone meal, or worse, chemicals like the drugs
Fosamax and Evista, does not mean this will translate into improved
health for your bones, or any of your other organ systems.

Indeed, before jumping off the lemming-like cliff of conventional
medical wisdom, consider there is a solid body of research indicating
that higher bone density may actually increase the risk of malignant
breast cancer by 300% or more! Considering that close to 1 in 4 women
will be diagnosed with cancer in their lives, with breast cancer top on
the list, isn't the neurotic fixation on increasing bone density with
calcium supplements misplaced, especially when it may increase the
overall risk of dying from cancer and, as we will see, cardiovascular
disease (the #1 killer), as well?

Calcium Can be Beneficial or Deadly Depending on Where it Ends Up in
Your Body

Calcium is the most abundant mineral in your body, necessary for
not only bone health but also regulating your heartbeat, conducting
nerve impulses, clotting blood and stimulating hormone secretions. Your
body does not make calcium, and in fact loses calcium daily through your
skin, nails, hair, sweat and elimination, which is why you must replace
it via your diet.

It has been estimated, however, that your body excretes as little
as 100 mg a day, making the current recommendations by the National
Osteoporosis Foundation for women over 50 to take 1200 mg a day, a bit
troubling. When we compare our calcium-rich diet to the traditional
calcium-poor Chinese peasant diet, which was free of cow's milk and
calcium supplements, approximately 250 mg a day of plant-based calcium
was all that was needed to fulfill their bodily needs – and this is a
culture with no word for "osteoporosis" in its 3,000+ year old language!

The truth is that taking any calcium in excess or isolation,
without complementary nutrients like magnesium, vitamin D and vitamin
K2, which help keep your body in balance, can have adverse effects, such
as calcium building up in coronary arteries and causing heart attacks.
Even taking calcium with vitamin D does not appear to be enough to
prevent these types of adverse effects.

So when you take a biologically foreign form of calcium (such as
limestone, oyster shell and bone meal (hydroxylapatite), or when your
body's ability to direct calcium to the right places becomes impaired
(as when you are deficient in vitamin K2), calcium may be deposited
where it shouldn't be, which can lead to multiple health problems.

Often, much of the burden of removing the excess calcium falls on
the kidneys, which is why it has been proven on numerous occasions that
calcium carbonate rapidly calcifies arteries in those with compromised
kidney function, especially hemodialysis patients. Calcium deposits are,
in fact, major contributors and even causative factors in many
conditions, including the following:
Cellulite and scar tissue Coronary artery disease and
atherosclerosis Dental plaque and gum disease Hypothyroidism
Obesity and diabetes Alzheimer's disease Breast cancer and
cysts (fibrocystic breasts) Gallstones, colon cancer and Crohn's disease
Kidney stones Ovarian cysts Cataracts, glaucoma, and
macular degeneration Bone spurs, stiff joints, osteoarthritis,
tendonitis and bone cancer

Too Much Calcium May Create Mineral Deficiencies that Promote Disease

Robert Thompson, M.D. wrote a book on this subject called The
Calcium Lie, which explains that bone is comprised of at least a dozen
minerals, and the exclusive focus on calcium supplementation is likely
to worsen bone density and actually increase your risk for osteoporosis.
Dr. Thompson believes overconsumption of calcium creates other mineral
deficiencies and imbalances that will increase your risk of heart
disease, kidney stones, gallstones, osteoarthritis, hypothyroidism,
obesity and type 2 diabetes.

If your calcium supplement is being turned into "little rocks" that
are being deposited in your soft tissues and arteries, you can begin to
understand how this could be increasing your risk for a heart attack,
stroke or other health condition.

Many believe that arterial plaque is simply a buildup of
cholesterol. But in reality, more than 90 percent of these fatty plaques
are calcified. Cholesterol is soft and waxy and does not impair the
elasticity of your arteries. But calcium deposits are like concrete,
"hardening" your arteries and impairing their ability to expand. It is
calcium -- not cholesterol -- that induces arterial stiffness and makes
the plaque less stable and more prone to chipping off and subsequently
inducing a life-threatening clot.

This is particularly important for postmenopausal women because
hormone balance is necessary for proper calcium signaling -- directing
your body to deposit calcium into your bones. When hormones fall out of
balance, this signaling causes calcium to slowly exit your bones and
become deposited in your arteries instead. Simply taking a calcium
supplement will not solve the problem because if your body cannot direct
the calcium to the right spot, it will cause far more harm than good.

Why Vitamin K2 is Crucial if You Take Vitamin D and Calcium …

Vitamin K2 engages in a delicate dance with vitamin D; whereas
vitamin D provides improved bone development by helping you absorb
calcium, there is new evidence that vitamin K2 directs the calcium to
your skeleton, while preventing it from being deposited where you don't
want it -- i.e., your organs, joint spaces, and arteries. As mentioned,
a large part of arterial plaque consists of calcium deposits
(atherosclerosis), hence the term "hardening of the arteries."

Vitamin K2 has also actually been found to decalcify certain
tissues undergoing pathological (also known as ectopic) calcification.

Vitamin K2 activates a protein hormone called osteocalcin, produced
by osteoblasts, which is needed to bind calcium into the matrix of your
bone. Osteocalcin also appears to help prevent calcium from depositing
into your arteries. In other words, without the help of vitamin K2, the
calcium that your vitamin D so effectively lets in might be working
AGAINST you -- by building up your coronary arteries rather than your
bones. This is why if you take calcium and vitamin D but are deficient
in vitamin K, you could be worse off than if you were not taking those
supplements at all.

Food is the Best Source of Calcium

In order for calcium to do your body good, it must be in a
bioavailable form and balanced out with vitamins D and K and other
important trace minerals, as part of a total nutritional plan.

Good sources include raw milk and cheese from pasture-raised cows
(who eat the plants), leafy green vegetables, the pith of citrus fruits,
carob, sesame seeds and wheatgrass, to name a few. It's worth mentioning
that the studies done about calcium from dairy products are all done
with pasteurized dairy, rather than raw dairy products that have more of
their nutrients intact, and this muddies the results of these studies.

Calcium from dietary sources is typically better absorbed and
utilized than calcium from supplements, which is why studies involving
calcium from natural food sources have shown favorable results,
including a 25 percent lower risk of dying from all causes, and a 23
percent lower risk of dying from heart disease.

You also need sources of silica and magnesium, which some
researchers say is actually enzymatically "transmuted" by your body into
the kind of calcium your bones can use. This theory was first put forth
by French scientist Louis Kevran, a Nobel Prize nominee who spent years
studying how silica, calcium, magnesium, and other minerals are related
and transmutable into one another through low-energy nuclear
transformation only found within living systems.

His theory explains how cows and chickens produce far more calcium
in their milk and eggs than is found in their diet, or why, workers
exposed to extremely high temperatures (130 degrees F) in the Middle
East are known to consume salt tablets, which their bodies convert to
potassium (as measured by their excreta), resulting in a reduction in
their bodily temperature.

Good sources of bone-strengthening silica are cucumbers, bell
peppers, tomatoes, and a number of herbs including horsetail, nettles,
oat straw, alfalfa, and raw cacao, which is also extremely rich in
highly bioavailable magnesium.

Dr. Thompson recommends the use of natural unprocessed salt as a
far better alternative to calcium supplements because it provides the
trace minerals you simply cannot get from food grown in today's
mineral-depleted soils. My favorite source of trace minerals is pure,
unprocessed Himalayan salt, which contains 84 elements needed by your body.

The bottom line is, optimize your vitamin D levels through sun
exposure and consume a variety of fresh, local organic whole foods,
including vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, organic meats and eggs,
unprocessed salt, and raw organic unpasteurized dairy, which will give
you the bioavailable calcium your body needs along with the trace
minerals and other cofactors it needs to be absorbed and properly
utilized by your body.


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