The role of dietary calcium in disease prevention.

Of the leading causes of death among adults in developed nations (coronary heart disease, cancer and stroke) most are influenced by diet. Dietary intake is also associated with diseases causing significant morbidity, including hypertension, diabetes mellitus and osteoporosis. Although nutritional epidemiology is inexact as a science, certain reproducible studies have implicated links from nutrient availability in the body to chronic disease. Dietary calcium is one nutrient that has been the focus of multiple studies in an effort to discover its preventive effects. It has been implicated in the reduction of risk in osteoporosis, but kidney stone formation, obesity, hypertension and even cancer are lesser known areas in which increasing dietary calcium has yielded positive outcomes.