Letters to the Editor

Calcium Supplements - Lead or No Lead?

Normally, your printed articles are well- researched and accurate. Zoltan Rona's article on calcium is neither. It is full of falsehoods. We are shocked that you actually printed such an ill-informed, totally unresearched piece. Let's see the laboratory data corroborating his outlandish claims of lead content in liquid calcium supplements. We'll be happy to pass it on to Ottawa's Health Directorate. A Naturopath should be vetting any article by non-wholistically trained persons such as Zoltan.

Did Big Pharma sponsor that preposterous article full of falsehoods? That's the conclusion to which we are now coming; if this continues your client base will quickly turn away to publications printing factually accurate information.

Surprised and disappointed,

- Associates of Inovamax Canada

Dr. Rona’s Response

Thank you for your strong emotional reaction to my article. I could not find your company anywhere on the Internet but it sounds like you are either a manufacturer or sales person that promotes a particular brand of nutritional supplement.  

The fact that lead is a contaminant of some calcium supplements is supported by numerous published studies. A small sampling of these articles is listed in the references below.

Some brands of liquid calcium, bone meal, dolomite, colloidal minerals, microcrystalline calcium hydroxyapatite, coral calcium and oyster shell calcium are indeed too high in their lead content. It is unfortunate that the reputation of the entire natural health products industry is tainted by manufacturers who not only peddle toxic nutritional remedies but also make outlandish claims for what these can do for one’s health.

If you or any of our readers want to know which specific brands contain unacceptable levels of lead, I suggest you visit an independent, unbiased web site called Consumerlab.com. This site publishes laboratory data on the actual versus advertised content of nutritional supplements of all kinds.  

For purposes of transparency, perhaps you should contact them and have your particular supplement brand analyzed so its content can be broadly published for all to see. Obviously, it would be in both your and the public’s interest to get the lead out.

Zoltan P. Rona, M.D., M.Sc.
www.mydoctor.ca/drzoltanrona

References:

• Edward A. Ross, MD; Nancy J. Szabo, PhD; Ian R. Tebbett, PhD. Lead Content of Calcium Supplements JAMA. 2000;284:1425-1429.  Results: 4 of 7 natural products had measurable lead content, amounting to approximately 1 mg/d for 800 mg/d of calcium, between 1 and 2 mg/d for 1500 mg/d of calcium, and up to 10 mg/d for renal dosages. Four of the 14 refined products had similar lead content, including up to 3 µg/d of lead in osteoporosis calcium dosages and up to 20 mg/d in high renal dosages. No lead was detected in the calcium acetate or polymer products. Lead was present even in some brand name products from major pharmaceutical companies not of natural oyster shell derivation. Conclusions: Despite increasingly stringent limits of lead exposure, many calcium supplement formulations contain lead and thereby may pose an easily avoidable public health concern.
• G M Scelfo and A R Flegal. Lead in calcium supplements. Environ Health Perspect. 2000 April; 108(4): 309–319.
• Crosby WH. Lead-contaminated health food. Association with lead poisoning and leukemia. JAMA. 1977 Jun 13;237(24):2627–2629.
• Capar SG, Gould JH. Lead, fluoride, and other elements in bonemeal supplements. J Assoc Off Anal Chem. 1979 Sep;62(5):1054–1061.
• Roberts HJ. Potential toxicity due to dolomite and bonemeal. South Med J. 1983 May;76(5):556–559.
• Rogan WJ, Ragan NB, Damokosh AI, Davoli C, Shaffer TR, Jones RL, Wilkens S, Heenehan MC, Ware JH, Henretig F. Recall of a lead-contaminated vitamin and mineral supplement in a clinical trial. Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf. 1999 Aug;8(5):343–350.
• Bourgoin BP, Boomer D, Powell MJ, Willie S, Edgar D, Evans D. Instrumental comparison for the determination of cadmium and lead in calcium supplements and other calcium-rich matrices. Analyst. 1992 Jan;117(1):19–22.
• Siitonen PH, Thompson HC Jr. Analysis of calcium and lead in calcium supplements by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry and graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrophotometry. J AOAC Int. 1994 77(5):1299–1304.
• www.naturalnews.com/004009.html

Fan Letter to Helke Ferrie

I just read your article The New Green Superpower (Dec 07/Jan08). It is a fantastic article: Accurate; Fresh approach; Well-written. I don't know what else to say, except "Thank you!"

- Bill Andrews, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Science

Readers:
Send your comments, criticisms, and letters of interest to: letters@vitalitymagazine.com. The letters may be edited to fit the space available.