{"doi":"10.17615/dxar-ym59","title":"Elevated brain lesion volumes in older adults who use calcium supplements: a cross-sectional clinical observational study","abstract":"Recent studies have implicated calcium supplements with elevated vascular risk, and therefore these supplements may also relate to the occurrence of brain lesions (or hyperintensities) in older adults. These lesions represent damage to brain tissue that is caused by ischaemia. This cross sectional clinical observational study examined the association between use of calcium-containing dietary supplements and lesion volumes in a sample of 227 older adults (60 years and older). Food and supplemental calcium intakes were assessed with a Block 1998 FFQ; participants with supplemental calcium intakes above zero were categorized as supplement users. Lesion volumes were determined from cranial MRI (1.5 Tesla) using a semi-automated technique; volumes were log-transformed because they were non-normal. An ANCOVA model showed that supplement users had greater lesion volumes than non-users, even after controlling for dietary food calcium, age, sex, race, education, energy intake, depression and hypertension (Calcium supplement use: β = 0.34, SE = 0.10, F1,217 = 10.98, p = 0.0011). The influence of supplemental calcium use on lesion volume was of similar magnitude to that of hypertension, a well-established risk factor for lesions. Among supplement users, the amount of supplemental calcium was not related to lesion volume (β = −0.000035, SE = 0.00015, F1,139 = 0.06, p = 0.81). This study indicates that the use of calcium-containing dietary supplements, even low dose supplements, by older adults may be associated with greater lesion volumes. Evaluation of randomised, controlled trials is warranted to determine if this relationship is a causal one.","journal":"UNC Libraries","year":2020,"id":138072,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":0,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9515,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":599517,"name":"Martha E. Payne","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":598789,"name":"John J.B. Anderson","orcid":"0000-0001-7823-9378","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":599518,"name":"Douglas R. McQuoid","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":503188,"name":"David C. Steffens","orcid":"0000-0001-6626-7398","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:16:59.449905Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}