CALCIUM and vitamin D in dairy products may be contributing to brain damage and dementia in older men and women, new research suggests.

Scientists believe too much calcium can narrow blood vessels in the brain, leading to neural damage. The effect may be compounded by vitamin D, which regulates calcium retention and activity.

Researchers made the discovery after scanning the brains of 79 men and 153 women aged between 60 and 86. All had at least a number of brain lesions - areas of tissue damage.

They varied in size and included tiny flaws often seen even in healthy older people. But participants consuming the most calcium and vitamin D were significantly more likely to have a higher total volume of brain lesions. Age, high blood pressure and other medical and mental conditions, including depression, made no difference to the results.

In earlier studies, the same United States team found individuals who consumed high amounts of fatty dairy products had larger numbers of brain lesions.

However, fat intake in general was not a significant factor. The researchers wanted to find out if a factor other than fat caused the harmful effects of a high dairy diet.

The findings, presented at a conference in Washington entitled Experimental Biology, point to calcium, which is abundant in dairy foods. Its regulator, vitamin D, is also found in many dairy products as well as vitamin-fortified foods such as margarine, cereals and bread.

The study leader, Dr Martha Payne, of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, said: “We do not know if high calcium and vitamin D intake are involved with the causation of brain lesions, but the study provides support to the growing number of researchers who are concerned about the effects of too much calcium, particularly among older adults, given the current emphasis on promoting high intakes of calcium and vitamin D.”

Her team is continuing to investigate possible ways in which high levels of calcium and vitamin D might damage the brain.

The leading theory is that when too much calcium is absorbed into blood vessel walls, it produces bone-like deposits. This calcification may narrow the blood vessels and make them less flexible, reducing the blood flow through them.

In the brain, neurons could be deprived of blood and die, causing the lesions that increase the risk of cognitive impairment, dementia, depression and strokes.

A previous study published last year by Columbia University Medical Centre suggested eating a “Mediterranean-style” diet significantly reduced the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Such a diet - rich in fruit, vegetables and cereals with some fish and alcohol and very little dairy and meat - has been long associated with a healthy lifestyle.

The food intake of participants was given a Mediterranean diet score of between zero and nine.

The researchers found that, for each additional point on the Mediterranean diet scale, the risk of Alzheimer’s dropped by almost 10 per cent.

ROME: When the Sicilian Mafia first tried to shake down the restaurateur Vincenzo Conticello, he quoted his grandmother Ermelinda to them: “Dont start paying up or you will always be a servant, never a free man.”

Unconvinced by Conticellos reason for not paying the \500, or $715, monthly “pizzo” - protection money paid all over southern Italy and by up to 8 out of 10 businesses in parts of Sicily - the Mafia hit back with death threats and a new demand for \50,000.

A member of the fifth generation of Conticellos to run Palermos Antica Focacceria San Francesco, the 48-year-old stood in court and pointed the finger at the men he said tried to force him to pay.

“If I had paid up, my grandmother would have turned in her grave,” said Conticello, one of a tiny band of businesspeople who, partly inspired by anti-racket groups like Addiopizzo (”goodbye pizzo”), have taken a stand.

They cannot even dent the mobs earnings. It is estimated that Italian crime syndicates, including the Cosa Nostra in Sicily, the Camorra in Naples and the Ndrangheta in Calabria, earn \75 billion a year from the protection racket and loan sharking.

But they hope to inspire others and eventually deprive the mob of an easy and low-risk source of cash.

“If the Mafia exists, it exists because businesses pay up,” said Tano Grasso, who set up the first anti-racket group in 1990 after refusing to pay protection money for his clothing firm.

Some pay a high price for refusing to pay, none more so than Libero Grassi, a Palermo merchant who was shot and killed in 1991. Conticello has to have an armed police escort.

Others have had their premises burned down or bombed, like Andrea Vecchio, a builder who suffered four fire-bomb attacks in four days.

Mafia experts say that the revolt against the racket coincides with a leadership vacuum in the Mafia since the 2006 arrest of the “boss of bosses,” Bernardo Provenzano.

“In Sicily theres a new aggression in their reaction due to the lack of leadership, and also the fact that they need money,” Grasso said from Naples, where he now campaigns against the Camorra and the pizzo.

A study by SOS Impresa, the anti-racket office of the retailers association, estimates that Italian mobsters garner \200 million a day through pizzo and loan sharking, with shopkeepers alone squeezed for \80 million a day.

The SOS Impresa chairmanm Lino Busa, believes businesses are rebelling against the pizzo “partly because the Mafia campaign to demand money has got worse and they have been using bombs.” This contrasts with Provenzanos “pax mafiosi,” Grasso says, when the mob would “reason with businesses to make paying the pizzo seem a reasonable thing to do, like a tax.”

The godfathers were once “happy with a discount or a free pizza,” Conticello said. After 2000, his business became a victim of its own success: as Conticello marketed the restaurant abroad and business grew, the Mafias mouth watered for a slice of earnings.

“Plus, my employees go out and tell people the Focacceria pays good wages and that creates envy,” Conticelli said.

Unlike the days when business leaders urged each other with fiscal logic “pay up, so we pay less,” the employers lobby Confindustria now threatens to expel members paying the pizzo.

Grassis widow, Pina, wants those who do pay up to be prosecuted as Mafia accomplices. “But such a law will never be passed,” she said on a recent anniversary of his death. “The fight against the racket will always be based on the courage of the few.”

A PAINTING of a “forgotten” Scottish hero who fought alongside William Wallace and Robert the Bruce was unveiled today at a Lothians stately home.

The Black Douglas was commissioned by Lord Selkirk of Douglas, who was determined to see his ancestor’s place in history remembered.

It was painted by Corries singer Ronnie Browne, best known for the unofficial Scottish anthem Flower of Scotland but also a talented artist.

The work was unveiled at Lennoxlove House, East Lothian, this morning by the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton, together with the Marquis of Douglas and Clydesdale and Lord Selkirk.

While the Scots warrior - real name James Douglas - has been overshadowed by his more famous contemporaries at home, he is still revered hundreds of miles away in southern Spain.

In Teba, where he died in battle fighting the Moorish invader Mohammed IV, he is remembered in annual celebrations even 700 years after his death.

Lord Selkirk said: “I was particularly struck last year, when a delegation from Teba arrived in Scotland to present me with a photograph of the memorial to Black Douglas at Castle of the Stars where he fought his last courageous battle to help the Spanish king repel the Moorish army.

“If Black Douglas was remembered in Spain, why not here? Here was a soldier who perfected tactical warfare and won more victories over the English than any other leader, more often than not against armies far larger than this own. He was a man feared and revered in his time.

“As his indirect descendants it was important to us that there was some celebration of his life within the Hamilton Collection at Lennoxlove House.

The painting shows a battle at Douglas Castle and the beheading of soldiers, a frequent tactic of the Black Douglas to warn off other attackers.

The painting also features the Castle of the Stars in Teba, and the casket containing King Robert the Bruce’s heart - which the Black Douglas carried with him to Spain.

Artist Ronnie Browne said: “I was honoured to paint such a key character in Scottish history. The painting illustrates the significant features of the Black Douglas and his life on the battlefield.

“It was a challenge to paint a portrait based around historical description as there are no surviving images of the Black Douglas.

“I was given excellent information which allowed me to recreate significant events in the life of the Black Douglas.

“History is such a key subject in Scottish culture and it is important that we recognise the impact the Black Douglas made on Scottish history.”

Bruce’s heart was incorporated into the Douglas coat of arms and subsequently in the 17th century, when the Douglas and Hamilton families joined through marriage, it also became part of the Hamilton crest and still appears there today.

The Black Douglas can be viewed by the public in the Great Hall at Lennoxlove House on Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. Forgotten hero

A master swordsman, formidable soldier and supreme tactician, the Black Douglas was instrumental in the fight against the English in the 14th century.

He was a specialist in fighting under cover of darkness, won more victories over the English than any other Scottish leader, and commanded a quarter of the Scots army at Bannockburn.

In 1314, he and his men attacked Roxburgh Castle at night disguised as cows, and recorded the first use of rope ladders with hooks on the end to scale the walls. His often ruthless deeds on the battlefield - including beheading enemy soldiers to warn off other attackers - struck fear into the hearts of the English. Mothers would warn their children to behave or the Black Douglas would get them.

To the Scots however, he was the Good Lord James who, true to Robert the Bruce’s dying wish, carried his king’s heart on crusade against the “heathen Moor” in southern Spain. Knights from across Europe joined the campaign, but Douglas died in battle at Teba.