Calcium and vitamin D does not lower cholesterol.
Those who want to improve heart health with decreased cholesterol levels, should not use calcium supplements and vitamin D, says a new study.
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Despite the announcements of its benefits, the evidence that support them are weak, told Reuters Health Dr. Swapnil Rajpathak, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York at.
High levels of cholesterol and other lipids (harmful blood fats, such as triglycerides) are risk factors for heart disease, the leading cause of death in America.
Calcium is the leading candidate in the efforts to reduce cholesterol by interfering with the absorption of fat in the body and perhaps even eliminate them.
However, only minor effects were observed in a few short trials. The relationship between vitamin D and lipids is even less known, summed Rajpathak team in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition online pharmacy.
The team looked more solid in a long-term study: Women’s Health Initiative, which identified to 1,191 postmenopausal women.
Experts divided them randomly into two groups, half were told to take a daily supplement of calcium (1,000 milligrams) plus vitamin D (400 IU) and the rest took a placebo.
At five years, there were no differences between groups in any of the tested lipids, including total cholesterol, LDL or “bad” cholesterol, triglycerides and HDL or “good.”
Both groups had reductions in the relatively small trial in each lipid tested, including the “good” cholesterol.
However, the study had its limitations. Participants were older women, making it impossible to conclude how men or young women respond to supplements. And the fact that women combined calcium and vitamin D did not allow to differentiate their effects.
“High intakes of calcium and vitamin D would be helpful to other results,” said Rajpathak. For example, bone health care. With regard to lipid control, its recommendations are not surprising: having a healthy diet and exercise.
SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, online February 24, 2010.
This is a flawed study and the results are skewed.
It was conducted with what is now known to be a below normal daily supplement of vitamin D3. The amount of vitamin D used in the study is only sufficient to ward off rickets.
Everyone understands that if you take a subclincal dose of anything it will not produce the expected result.
If the study had been conducted with some taking 400 iu, some taking 2,000 iu, and some taking 5,000 iu daily and a control group taking no supplement they would have had different results.