According to a study by the United States National Cancerdefine Institute (NCI), women with higher intake of calcium appear to have a lower risk of all kinds of cancer.
Dr. Susan Boolbol, chief of breast surgery at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, said certain recommended calcium intake significantly protects both men and women from cancers of the digestive system "such as esophageal cancer, or stomach cancer, or colorectal cancer."
Calcium is the most common mineral in the body and nearly 99 percent is found in the bones or skeleton; the rest is in teeth, soft tissues and blood. If an individual’s diet is constantly low in calcium, his body will eventually remove calcium from the skeleton making the bones brittle and weak.
Lead author of the study, Yikyung Park, a staff scientist at NCI along with her team looked at the data of 293,907 men and 198,903 women who participated in the American National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study.
The subjects took a questionnaire on their diets and supplement intakes when they enrolled in 1995 and 1996 and matched it to cancer databases until 2003.
"In both men and women, dairy food and calcium intakes were inversely associated with cancers of the digestive system,” the researchers said.
After follow-up for seven years, 36,965 cancer cases were identified in men and 16,605 in women. Males who consumed 1,530 milligrams per day had a 16 percent lower risk of all types of cancer than those who consumed 526 milligrams every day.
Females who consumed at least 1,881 milligrams per day had a 23 percent lower risk than those who consumed 494 milligrams per day. The decreased risk was particularly pronounced for colorectal cancer.
"Dairy food, which is relatively high in potentially anticarcinogenic nutrients such as calcium, vitamin D and conjugated linoleic acid, has been postulated to protect against the development of colorectal and breast cancer," the authors write.
Calcium has shown to reduce abnormal growth and induce normal turnover among cells in the gastrointestinal tract and breast. The authors write, “In conclusion, our findings suggest that calcium intake consistent with current recommendations is associated with a lower risk of total cancer in women and cancers of the digestive system, especially colorectal cancer, in both men and women."
The American health experts recommend a daily calcium intake of at least 1,200 milligrams (1.2 gm) a day for adults 50 and older, that is about 3 cups of low-fat or fat-free dairy products, such as milk or yogurt .
Foods that are good sources of calcium are low fat plain yogurt, cheese, cow's milk (either whole milk or low fat milk) or goat's milk, calcium fortified soy milk, almonds, cheddar cheese, dried figs, orange juice, dark green leafy vegetables (spinach, broccoli), sweet potatoes, tofu, lentils, sardines and salmon.
Along with calcium, Vitamin D is important for calcium absorption. It is made by the body when the skin is exposed to sunlight, vitamin D is also found in fish, egg yolks and fortified foods.
The findings of the study appear in the Feb. 23 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
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