Home » Those calcium pills–Emily Litella again?

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Those calcium pills–Emily Litella again? — 17 Comments

  1. In my opinion, all these diets are as good as good-for-nothings. I mean to say, today too many statistical-minded people and techniques involved (it’s good!) to prove any diet non-satisfactory. In old times there was no statistics at work (it’s bad!) and “old recipes” worked for much more years serving ppl throughout.
    This is my cynical view of all “that goes bad” in our super-modern too-accomplished times. I may be wrong, equally I may be right.

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  4. It’s likely your healthy bones come from those years spent dancing, as you described in your other post.

    The other part of the healthy bones prescription was “load bearing exercise” – but human nature being what it is, most folks just pop the supplement.

    The body responds not just to what’s loaded into it, but also to the demands made upon it.

  5. I had read somewhere (don’t remember where at the moment, I’m suffering from pregnancy-induced amnesia) that the amount of calcium recommended in the diet is more or less a “best guess” since it’s not known how much of the calcium is actually absorbed. I also remember reading somewhere that the amount of calcium you need is in direct proportion to the amount of protein you eat, so if you’re eating not a lot of protein, you don’t need a lot of calcium.

  6. Using fractures as the variable criteria, is a very bad decision. It does not truly tell how strong a bone is, through the statistics.

    I feel for ya, but it’s fear, not reason that makes you call yourself a neo-neocon

    I don’t get this. It is Republicans with the guns and the buried M60s, M82 sniper rifles, and bombs. Why aren’t the Democrats afraid? They’re not that courageous.

    What made you dislike milk in the first place? Did you drink it while you were young? Cause I always hated vegetables cause they were hard to chew on.

  7. Thank for post this. As a woman who is soon facing menopause, I am overwhelmed by the ‘choices’ we have.

    You either have to put up with hot flashes, osteoporosis, increase risk in heart disease OR increased chance of breast cancer.

    This plus the low fat/low carb/low whatever diet debacle is confusing enough.

    I think the best you can do is go with the flow. Get a BD test, as you have, then you know if you should worry or not.

    Also, it can never hurt to eat health and stay active. I think that is the key.

  8. And nowhere on this post and comments does anyone mention the importance of exercise in keeping bones strong. Walking a mile or two a day might do more good than a complicated regimen of supplements.

  9. Anon at 7:52 PM: Your comment is either a joke, or the newly-popular fear meme de jour rearing its tiresome head again (and when one least expects it–on a post about calcium supplements, of all things!) If the latter, so much for the straw man accusation (see this, especially this comment).

  10. Both this and the low-fat diet study were part of the huge Women’s Health Initiative study, which, whatever its flaws, is most certainly not a sloppy or poorly designed study. Its size and length have allowed it to provide unprecedented amounts of prospective, longitudinal data on aspects of women’s health that had not previously been systematically studied. One of its triumphs has been its ability to provide rational information on therapies that had been assumed to be beneficial without being properly studied. Some of the flaws in the calcium study design, however, may have been due to the fact that the study was initially designed primarily to study the effects hormone replacement therapy and diet on cancer. It’s true that results like this can be confusing, but the confusion reflects the reality that the area is not perfectly understood. Despite complaints from the public about conflicting data, I don’t see how it would be better to conceal confusing results from an unequivocal answer is reached.

  11. I feel for ya, but it’s fear, not reason that makes you call yourself a neo-neocon

  12. ITA with the good Dr. Sanity.

    About calcium supplements: to get the most out of them, they have to be taken with an acid, and so typically you’d want to take them with vitamin C or with your morning orange juice or something.

    Another little-publicized fact is that calcium and iron will bind to each other, so if you take a calcium supplement with an iron supplement at the same time, much of both of them will be prevented from getting into your system.

    Calcium on it’s own isn’t going to do everything you need for your bones, either. You need magnesium, zinc, and vitamin D, too. I’ve finally settled on a regimen of which includes a combined calcium/magnesium/zinc supplement taken with vitamin D and vitamin C.

    (I’ve heard some advertising insisting that we also need phosphorous, but none of my doctors ever mentions it, so, I dunno know.)

    As for this study, what is up with these long, expensive, poorly designed studies? Could we please stop throwing money at research that isn’t going to do any good at all? I know it’s hard to collect good data, but bad data isn’t useful. All these studies are doing is muddying the waters.

  13. I have a family history of osteoporosis and every time I try to take calcium, within a month or so I have a kidney stone. This is extreme negative reinforcement for taking the supplement and I finally stopped a year ago and decided to stay on estrogen therapy instead. Turns out that probably works better, except that women have been scared out of their wits by all the latest brouhaha about the evils of estrogen. The truth is that all such decisions have to be a cost/benefit analysis done by the individual woman (and this holds true for any medication for any illness, male or female). There is no such thing as a drug without side effects.

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