Calcium may help you live longer: study - Yahoo! News: March 12 2010
"Swedish researchers found that men who consumed the most calcium in food were 25 percent less likely to die over the next decade than their peers who took in the least calcium from food. None of the men took calcium supplements...The findings are in line with previous research linking higher calcium intake with lower mortality in both men and women... Dr. Joanna Kaluza of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and her colleagues looked at more than 23,000 Swedish men who were 45 to 79 years old at the study's outset and were followed for 10 years. All had reported on their diet at the beginning of the studyThe top calcium consumers had a 25 percent lower risk of dying from any cause and a 23 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease during follow-up relative to men that had the least amount of calcium in their diet. Calcium intake didn't significantly influence the risk of dying from cancer... Men in the top third based on their calcium intake were getting nearly 2,000 milligrams a day, on average, compared to about 1,000 milligrams for men in the bottom third. The US Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for calcium intake is 1,000 milligrams for men 19 to 50 years old and 1,200 milligrams for men 50 and over.
"Intake of calcium above that recommended daily may reduce all-cause mortality," Kaluza and her colleagues conclude.
Calcium could influence mortality risk in many ways, they note, for example by reducing blood pressure, cholesterol, or blood sugar levels. For the men in the study, the main sources of calcium in the diet were milk and milk products and cereal products...In contrast to calcium, there was no relationship between magnesium consumption and overall mortality or deaths from cancer or heart disease."
