| | Bill,
What about calcified arteries being promoted by too much calcium? I read a recent study which said that hardening of the arteries was worse in women who took a lot of calcium to prevent osteoporosis. What's your take on that? I also read something recently about vitamin K helping to reverse arterial calcification. If taking a lot of calcium promotes any arterial calcification, then it's effect is minor and offset by other, more-major things. Some calcium intake is actually indicated in arterial calcification due to excessive blood phosphate. I've identified nine, potentially-major players in arterial calcification:
(1) vitamin K (as you said)
(2) phosphate
(3) insulin resistance
(4) inflammation
(5) long-term antibiotic use (anti-menaquinone)
(6) warfarin use (anti-vitamin K)
(7) kidney failure
(8) statin use (rhabdomyolytic hyperphosphatemia) [?]
(9) vitamin D [?]
The last two are questionable. For statins, we'd need to validate rhabdomyolysis (muscle cell breakdown). After validating rhabdomyolysis, we'd need to verify that it's enough to cause hyperphosphatemia. After that, we've got a true culprit in arterial calcification. For vitamin D, too little of it can be as bad (or worse?) than too much of it. Perhaps more important is to control inflammation, which activates vitamin D at the arterial site.
Caveat: I'm not a doctor, just a genius. Work with your healthcare professional when altering your prescriptions, diet or lifestyle.
:-)
Ed
Reference:
At www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed, search for:
11706300
15786402
17606264
17765144
17374084
18433704
18841280
18562594
19179058
3060161
(Edited by Ed Thompson on 2/02, 8:26am)
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