Coral Calcium

Coral Calcium--The New Scam?
Apparently, a new fad sweeping some parts of the country is the sale of coral calcium. Its a "multi-level marketing" push, reminiscent of other high-powered questionable games played by "promoters." Aside from the outrageous prices charged by this particular promoter, i.e., $59.00 for 90 pills--whereas similar pills can be bought from mail-order vitamin distributors for $11 (with more ingredients), the claims made for coral calcium might make the F.T.C. scream. That is, if and when they get around to it.

The high price, by the way, is caused by two factors--the promoter's desire to make bundles of money quickly at the expense of the naīve and the trusting, and the high cost of promoting this stuff. The idea in marketing is to charge a very high price so you can spend lots on advertising and promotion. Essentially, the retail buyer is subsidizing the marketing costs. The relationship to any real value appears tenuous.

Here is what one promotion claimed--"Coral Calcium's PH has proven beneficial for Weight Loss, Cancer, Joint Pain, Heart Disease, High Cholesterol, Muscle Cramps, Kidney Stones, Indigestion, Allergies, Headaches and much more!"

There was no mention of increasing your car's gasoline mileage. A regrettable omission, no doubt.

So what is the scientific foundation for these claims? Shockingly enough, we could not find any. The material did say, "According to current studies...." Of course, none were cited. So, we did our own investigation of scientific studies of coral calcium.

The following medical and scientific journals were examined:

Rev. Chir. Orthop Repara., Mun. Diefer Gesichtschir., Science, J. Dent. Res., Toxicon., Chirug.

Pardon the interruption, but you might wonder how we came to choose these? The answer is that these and the ones below were the only journals that contained research studies on coral calcium.

J. Nutr. Sci. Vitamin., Implant. Dent., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, J. Biomed. Mater. Res., --and a few others, listing ended here for brevity.

Here are some conclusions from these journals:

"Biocoral is a biomaterial derived from natural corals, and it has surgical applications. Since 1992 the author has been using this material as a bone graft substitute for 'facial] surgery." Helpful if you're in that field.

"The most effective materials within bone defect improvement 'in dental surgery] were freeze-dried bone and calcium hydroxide." Apparently coral did not quite make it in this report.

"Coralline hydroxyapatite could be the correct coralline material to fill 'the] defect after elevation of an articular depression." Surgeons might find this helpful.

"The results suggested that coral grafts are well tolerated...."

Despite an exhaustive research effort, we could not find any work done on the use of coral calcium, in pill form, as either a preventative or treatment for any disease.

One might be surprised to learn that coral is a living organism, related to the sea anemone. And it is an endangered species. One might expect that promoters would deny that their exploitation of coral does not contribute to its demise. Of course.