Calcium intake and cardiovascular diseases

Abstract

Although a great bulk of epidemiologic, experimental and clinical studies for relationship between calcium intake and morbidity and mortality of hypertension, coronary heart diseases and cerebrovascular diseases have been undertaken, they failed to obtain the concurrent results. They also failed to reveal the concurrent preventive and therapeutic effects of calcium supplementation on cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. It is recommended to take the required amounts of calcium (> or = 600 mg/day) and magnesium (> or = 300 mg/day) not only for prevention of cardiovascular diseases but also for the general health, and to restrict salt intake.