Calcium supplements can significantly increase the risk of heart attack, new research has found.

3 - 2 - 1- heart attack!
Calcium supplements, widely recommended to elderly people and post-menopausal women, can significantly increase the risk of heart attack, new research has found.
The study by the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg involved nearly 24,000 people aged 35 to 64 whose health was tracked for an average of 11 years.
Those who used calcium supplements were twice as likely to have a heart attack as those who didn't use any vitamin/mineral supplements, it found.
Furthermore, boosting the calcium in one's diet doesn't necessarily stave off heart disease or stroke, as some past research has suggested.
"This study suggests that increasing calcium from diet might not confer significant cardiovascular benefits, while calcium supplements, which might raise [heart attack] risk, should be taken with caution," said study co-author professor Sabine Rohrmann.
Accompanying the findings, which appear online Thursday in the journal Heart, is a commentary by two professors from the University of Auckland who say "the safety of calcium supplements is now coming under increasing scrutiny."
"It is now becoming clear that taking this micronutrient in one or two daily [doses] is not natural, in that it does not reproduce the same metabolic effects as calcium in food," said professors Ian Reid and Mark Bolland.
Supplements are "neither safe nor effective," they concluded, and their use should be discouraged.Read here.