Coral Calcium - Health and Environmental Concerns

Health and Environmental Concerns

Living coral reefs are endangered and cannot be harvested without significant damage to the ecosystem, and because of this, coral calcium is harvested by grinding up above-ground limestone deposits that were once part of a coral reef. Calcium from coral sources needs to be refined to remove pollutants of the source environment. It is marketed as a dietary supplement, but its benefits over other calcium supplements are unproven and biologically unlikely, and several marketers have been found guilty of fraud and were ordered to pay $20.4 million and to refrain from making unsubstantiated claims in the future. Additionally, coral near Okinawa has absorbed relatively high amounts of lead and mercury, leading to concern that these unregulated supplements may be contaminated. Further, coral takes millennia to grow, leading to environmental concerns.

Read more about this topic:  Coral Calcium

Famous quotes containing the words health and, health and/or concerns:

    Pride can go without domestics, without fine clothes, can live in a house with two rooms, can eat potato, purslain, beans, lyed corn, can work on the soil, can travel afoot, can talk with poor men, or sit silent well contented with fine saloons. But vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, health and peace, and is still nothing at last; a long way leading nowhere.—Only one drawback; proud people are intolerably selfish, and the vain are gentle and giving.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The debt was the most sacred obligation incurred during the war. It was by no means the largest in amount. We do not haggle with those who lent us money. We should not with those who gave health and blood and life. If doors are opened to fraud, contrive to close them. But don’t deny the obligation, or scold at its performance.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    Art and science coincide insofar as both aim to improve the lives of men and women. The latter normally concerns itself with profit, the former with pleasure. In the coming age, art will fashion our entertainment out of new means of productivity in ways that will simultaneously enhance our profit and maximize our pleasure.
    Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)