Word: calcium
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...woman who has been faithfully swallowing her daily calcium supplements in hopes of staving off osteoporosis and colorectal cancer can be forgiven for being confused by news last week that two major studies found that the pills provide little or no benefit against either condition. But as is so often the case with complicated health studies, it pays to dig beyond the headlines...
First the news. A study of more than 36,000 healthy postmenopausal women determined that taking a standard calcium-and-vitamin-D supplement for seven years had no significant effect for most of them on preventing fractures in the spine, arms and hips, although it did lead to a 1% improvement in hip-bone density. Yet women who managed to take the vitamin-mineral combo at least four days out of five had a statistically significant 29% fewer hip fractures. And women over 60 suffered 21% fewer broken hips...
...beneficial effect on the rate of colorectal cancer. But those women were not at any particular risk of colorectal cancer. Other studies have concluded that men and women who have already had one precancerous polyp surgically removed from their intestinal tract develop fewer subsequent polyps if they take calcium supplements...
...take-home message? Calcium and vitamin D supplements are no magic bullets, but if you're going to take them, try to take them every...
First discovered by Clapham’s lab in 2001, the CatSper protein is activated by the higher pH environment of the female cervix. Activated CatSper allow calcium ions to flow into the sperm’s tail. The calcium influx, measurable as an electrical current, alters the way the flagella bends and hyper-activates the tail’s motor proteins. In experiments, mice altered to lack the CatSper protein had weak swimming sperm and were infertile...