This piece is the complete Epilogue (1) of Stones in the Body: More Frightening Than Cancer (Yoon Jong-won). It is a narrative containing the author's academic hypothesis, and the body, figures, and citations follow the manuscript as written.
When a myocardial infarction patient is carried into the emergency room, the medical staff do everything in their power to open the blocked blood vessel. And when they succeed, they say "it was treated well." But the answers to why that blood vessel became blocked, whether the other blood vessels are all right, and what must change so that the same thing does not repeat, remain unclear.
This book casts doubt on that unclarity. It seeks the link hidden among the individual diseases, and tries to fit the scattered puzzle pieces into a single picture. At the center of that picture is calcium.
Calcium is not a simple lump of stone. It is a warning that our body sends, and the trace of an imbalance that has been progressing for decades. If we understand it properly, we can suppress calcification. We cannot refuse the natural order of life, aging, illness, and death, but by slowing its speed we can have the chance to extend a healthy life span free of pain.
I hope this book becomes the first step of that understanding. When we come to see what had been invisible, only then can we change it.
Now it is time to face that uncomfortable and shocking truth. This book will overturn, root and all, the health common sense you have believed in.
The culprit is not cancer. It is the calcium that turns your body into stone.
References
1. Statistics Korea. (2025.9.25). 2024 Causes of Death Statistics Results.
2. Newsis. (2025.9.25). Last year's three leading causes of death, cancer, heart disease, and pneumonia… intentional self-harm up 6.6%↑.
3. WHO. (2024). The Top 10 Causes of Death. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death
4. WHO. (2025). Cardiovascular Diseases (CVDs) Fact Sheet. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cardiovascular-diseases-(cvds)
5. American Heart Association. (2025). 2025 Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics. Circulation.
6. JACC. (2025). Global, Regional, and National Burden of Cardiovascular Diseases and Risk Factors in 204 Countries and Territories, 1990-2023.
7. Bhattarai, K.R. et al. (2022). Calcium homeostasis and cancer: insights from endoplasmic reticulum-centered organelle communications. Trends in Cell Biology.
8. Zheng, P. et al. (2022). Connecting Calcium-Based Nanomaterials and Cancer: From Diagnosis to Therapy. Nano-Micro Letters.
9. O'Grady, S. & Morgan, M.P. (2019). Deposition of calcium in an in vitro model of human breast tumour calcification. Scientific Reports, 9, 542.
10. Thompson, R.C. et al. (2013). Atherosclerosis across 4000 years of human history: the Horus study of four ancient populations. The Lancet.
11. Allam, A.H. et al. (2024). Atherosclerosis in ancient mummified humans: the global HORUS study. European Heart Journal, 45(25), 2259.
12. Allam, A.H. et al. (2011). Atherosclerosis in Ancient Egyptian Mummies: The Horus Study. JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging.
13. Byon, C.H. et al. (2012). Detection of Hydroxyapatite in Calcified Cardiovascular Tissues. PMC.
14. Wasilewski, G.B. et al. (2019). The Bone: Vasculature Axis: Calcium Supplementation and the Role of Vitamin K. Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine.
15. Persy, V. & D'Haese, P. (2009). Vascular calcification and bone disease: the calcification paradox. Trends in Molecular Medicine.
16. PMC. (2014). The connections between vascular calcification and bone health. Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation.
17. Kim, H.B. et al. (2021). Calcium Supplements and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: A Meta-Analysis of Clinical Trials. Nutrients.
18. Tan, S.Y. et al. (2023). Association Between Calcium Supplementation and the Risk of Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke. Heart, Lung and Circulation.
19. Sahni, S. et al. (2012). Calcium intake is not associated with increased coronary artery calcification: the Framingham Study. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
20. Weaver, C.M. (2020). Calcium Supplementation and Coronary Artery Disease: A Methodological Confound? Journal of the American College of Nutrition.
21. WHO. Medical Certification of Cause of Death: Instructions for Physicians on Use of International Form of Medical Certificate of Cause of Death.
22. Kim, J.H. et al. (2023). The Impact of Pneumonia on Short- and Long-term Mortality in Patients with Hip Fracture: A Nationwide Retrospective Cohort Study. Journal of Korean Medical Science, 38(5), e33.