Calcium Supplements Might Raise Older Women’s Dementia Risk

Taking calcium supplements with the hope of keeping osteoporosis at bay may raise an older women’s risk of dementia, a new study suggests.

And that seems particularly true if a woman has already sustained an event causing poor blood flow to the brain (cerebrovascular disease), such as from a stroke, the researchers said.

The study can’t prove cause-and effect. However, dementia risk was seven times higher in female stroke survivors who took calcium supplements, compared to women with a history of stroke who didn’t use the supplements, the findings showed.

Lead researcher Dr. Silke Kern stressed that the findings apply only to calcium supplements. Calcium from food appears to affect the brain differently than calcium from supplements, she explained. Food calcium appears to be safe or even protective said the neuropsychiatric researcher at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

Kern isn’t sure why calcium supplements might have this effect. Calcium plays a crucial role in cell death, she said, and high levels of calcium in the blood might prompt the early death of neurons. Excess calcium also might somehow affect the blood vessels within the brain.

But Dr. Neelum Aggarwal cautioned against blaming calcium supplements alone for any person’s dementia risk. “We need to consider that the combination of nutrients will be more predictive than one nutrient,” said the associate professor of neurological science and director of research for the Rush Heart Center for Women at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “For example, calcium, phosphorus and magnesium all are typically looked at for their effects on multiple organs, and cognitive [mental] functioning will be affected most likely by a combination of these nutrients. To say that only one nutrient increases the risk of dementia is premature, and more studies need to look at a combination of nutrients.”