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# Calcium cuts death risk from cardiovascular disease in women
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/calcium_cuts_death_risk_from_cardiovascular_disease_0216161108/
- Published: 2016-02-16T12:07:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T16:30:41.000Z
- Description: Among 132,823 adults followed 17 years in the Cancer Prevention Study II cohort, women taking supplemental calcium had 7 to 16 percent lower all-cause mortality, while men taking over 1,000 mg a day had higher death risk. The authors note the study is observational, not a trial.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Supplements, Nutrition, #vivvo-import

Tuesday Feb 26, 2016(foodconsumer.org) -- A study published recently in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that taking calcium supplements or eating calcium rich foods lowers the risk of death from all causes including cardiovascular disease in women, but not men.

The study supported by the American Cancer Society shows that the risk of death from all causes including cardiovascular disease for women who took 0.1 to more than 1000 mg per day of supplemental calcium were 7 to 16 percent lower than that for women who did not take calcium supplements.

However, the study finds men who took more than 1000 mg per day of supplemental calcium were at 17% increased risk of all cause death and 22% increased risk for death from cardiovascular disease.

Also in women, total calcium intake was inversely correlated with all cause mortality. That is, higher intake was linked to a lower premature death risk.

Dietary calcium or calcium from diets was not associated with risk of death from all causes like cardiovascular disease in either gender.

The study was based on data from 132,823 men and women enrolled in the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort who were followed up for 17 years for mortality outcomes.

The stud concludes that "for women, total and supplemental calcium intakes are associated with lower mortality, whereas for men, supplemental calcium intake ≥1000 mg/d may be associated with higher all-cause and CVD-specific (cardiovascular disease) mortality".

It should be noted that the study is not a trial and the associations revealed by the study may not be causal relations, which mean that it is still unclear whether or not taking calcium supplements or eating high calcium foods may lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease or other causes. 

For instance, women who took calcium supplements might have taken a better care of themselves and thus lived a longer life. And men took calcium supplements because they might have had a serious health condition in the first place, which put them at a higher risk of premature death. (David Liu)

*Baiyu Yang, Peter T Campbell, Susan M Gapstur, Eric J Jacobs, Roberd M Bostick, Veronika Fedirko, W Dana Flanders, and Marjorie L McCullough, Calcium intake and mortality from all causes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease: the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort, First published February 10, 2016, doi: 10.3945/ajcn.115.117994, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition*