Dear Pam,

This article is truly informative. It was something I had been thinking of since 2010 when my elder sister who was in the pink of health and walking around several miles a day even at the age of 72 died suddenly from a painless but massive heart attack that went across the entire wall with all the leads V1 to V6 of the ECG ( Heart Electro cardiogram) showing a typical "tombstone" shaped infarction, or heart attack.

We were all shocked beyond measure. her cholesterol was within reasonable limits, she was 72 years old and very thin, weighing only 48 kilograms, and short 5 feet in height.

The only thing that was wrong with her was an unattended osteoporosis that had been building up for years as she seldom took milk or milk products. But her Bloof Calcium was always on the high side, bordering on hypercalcemia.

It used to occur to me -- how come her blood calcium was so high despite the fact that she took almost nothing as Calcium, and no calcium supplements?

A DXA scan showed that her T scans were bad about -3.5 to -4 all over.

And she took nothing for it. Then a doctor just gave her an injection of 6,00,000 IUs of Vitamin D and asked her to take calcium tablets of 500 mg -- but she had barely begun to take them, when she died of this sudden and massive heart attack for which there was no explanation.

She had a severe migraine attack with vomiting before it was diagnosed as the start of the heart attack. Theories were later advanced that this may have been an embolous that hit the brain first, or that some part of the heart may have developed a swelling that burst -- whatever they call it in medical terms.

My theory was that the osteoporosis had put excess calcium from the bones into the blood, which was why the calcium was high there. My theory was that it was the overload of Calcium from the bones into the muscles and cells of the body and into the coronary arteries that had caused a clot to form and caused the massive heart attack.

Your post also brings back the unanswered question -- does too much calcium in the blood, due to osteoporosis, breaking bones, lead to a calcified plaque build up in the heart and brain arteries and does this build up lead to a massive stroke and heart attack? I think this is what happened in my sister's case, although it was not backed up by any medical evidence other than the osteoporosis and high calcium in the blood -- which may have shot up further with the injection of 6,00,000 IU of Vitamin D3 cholecalciferol.

Please do reserach into this field also while you are delving into one of the most important aspects of osteoporosis and heart disease. 

Dr. Bill Davis had cited a New Zealand study where women who took too much calcium had the highest heart attack rates.

And this would again bring to fore the complexities of how much calcium to take in osteoporosis - both as prevention and as therapy.

Thanking you again!

Yours,

Priya

Pam Flores, Health Guide

2/17/12 1:08pm

Hi Priya, you make some very good point and I believe you may have figured out your dear sisters problem. 

 

I didn't realize her scores were that low, but I remember her hypercalcemia problems.  Did anyone ever connect the two?

 

Maybe Dr. D can help us on this...Thanks for promoting this post, it is greatly appreciated and I'm sure all your friends appreciate it!  You are a great reminder to all of us to be proactive with bone loss and heart disease prevention.

 

I'll look into your concerns and see what I can find-okay?

 

Take care!