A new study shows that calcium supplements and calcium rich diets can increase a woman's lifespan.
Lisa Langsetmo, a Ph.D. Research Associate at McGill University and lead author of a recent study on calcium supplements found that consuming up to 1,000 mg of calcium per day can help women enjoy a longer life.
For the study, Langsetmo worked with Prof. David Goltzman from the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism in the Department of Medicine at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC).
Calcium is known to strengthen bones and can be found in abundance in food items that are rich in vitamins like dairy products. In spite of this advantage, scientists also linked the consumption of calcium products to increased risk of heart diseases. To analyze this link, researchers looked into the findings of a large-scale Canadian Multicentre Osteoporosis Study that was undertaken to find out whether calcium and vitamin D intake was associated with overall increased risk of death.
"We found that daily use of calcium supplements in women was associated with a lower risk of death, irrespective of cause," said the study's lead author, Prof. Goltzman, director, Calcium Research Laboratory at McGill. "The benefit was seen for women who took doses of up to 1,000 mg per day, regardless of whether the supplement contained vitamin D."
"Higher amounts of calcium were potentially linked to longer lifespans in women, regardless of the source of the calcium," says Goltzman. "In other words, the same benefits were seen when the calcium came from dairy foods, non-dairy foods or supplements."
