|
|
|
|
Deborah
Skeptic Friend
USA
113 Posts |
 Posted - 01/11/2003 : 12:41:27
|
|
Lately, I've noticed that well respected companies are promoting the calcium benefits of products beyond the usual "builds strong bones" claim. That it fights disease etc.. And then there is the famous infomercial with Robert Barefoot selling the benefits of coral calcium. What do all of you critics and skeptics think about the claims surrounding coral calcium?
|
|
|
Randy
SFN Regular
USA
1990 Posts |
Posted - 01/11/2003 : 16:23:44 [Permalink]
|
http://63.75.126.224/Google/fda_search.pl?client=fdagov&site=fdagov&restrict=&searchselector=0&q=coral+calcium
Don't know personally about this coral calcium, but I did a quick search at the FDA site; see above for any pertinent links. I noticed a few mislabel warnings, incomplete ingredient lists. One importer from Canada has this FDA tag....
Reason: DRUG NAME
Section: 502(e)(1); 801(a)(3); Misbranding
Charge: The article appears to be a drug and fails to bear
the proprietory or established name and/or name and quantity
of each active ingredient.
(maybe from overzelous marketing claims?)
===========
http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/1998/198_deep.html
Read "A Coral Performance" about 2/3's down the page.
==========
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/fdalead.html
Lead caution.
===========
These are just a couple three sites from the top link. A number of others are PDF. Hope this helps.
Randy
|
"We are all connected; to each other biologically, to the earth chemically, to the rest of the universe atomically."
"So you're made of detritus [from exploded stars]. Get over it. Or better yet, celebrate it. After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?"
-Neil DeGrasse Tyson |
 |
|
|
Kilted_Warrior
Skeptic Friend
Canada
118 Posts |
Posted - 01/11/2003 : 19:27:56 [Permalink]
|
The calcium part of the coral would be the same as calcium from milk or any other source, unless it has a different structure such as those in an allotrope. The selling points, if true would probably relate more to the trace elements in the product,
BUT
as far as I know, all dead coral are almost pure non-metallic calcium, like bones. Stuff like this normally is bogus, and the coral part is just a selling point. |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 01/13/2003 : 10:10:23 [Permalink]
|
I first heard about coral calcium on the psoriasis newsgroup. The poster there made a lot of whacky claims for it, mostly dealing with blood pH levels. My response (nearly three years old now) can be found on Google.
I've since learned that blood pH is kept in a pretty tight range just by breathing. Heavy exercise acidifies the blood, and breathing hard dumps CO2, which makes the blood more alkaline again. If you sit where you are and just hyperventilate for less than a minute, you can even feel the first affects of alkalosis (tingling lips are a start) - not that I would suggest anybody actually do this.
Advocates of acid/alkaline diets and the like also tend to sell urine pH tests, but urine pH levels change over _days_, and have little to do with blood pH or general health (but can change drastically as a symptom of serious diseases). Urine pH levels aren't a good indicator of blood or tissue pH levels, it seems.
But I'm digressing. At least one coral calcium company was still making "pH balancing" claims for its products in June, 2001. But it seems to me that the FDA's relative "crackdown" on labeling issues for these products is doing well, and a bunch of the old coral calcium web sites I knew about no longer say much of anything (they used to contain reams of "data" on pH imbalances creating disease).
|
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
|
|
|
Dr Shari
Skeptic Friend
135 Posts |
Posted - 02/02/2003 : 19:42:55 [Permalink]
|
| Some calcium sources are absorbed by the body better then others. Oyster shell calcium has always been considered the closest to what the body needs to build stronger bones. Coral Calcium sounds like another rip off to up the price. It costs more so it must be better kind of thing. Unless you have a severe calcium defiency there is no reason to take a suppliment other then the cheapest. |
Death: The High Cost of Living
It is easier to get forgiveness then to get permission! |
|
|
|
Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
|
|
 |
|
Topic Locked
