An environmentalist has called on health food stores and customers to boycott coral calcium supplements on the grounds that their collection may be damaging the world's reefs.

But spokepeople for the Island's two main health food stores said they understood the brands of coral calcium on their shelves to be environmentally friendly.

Yesterday, it emerged that sales of coral calcium pills "went through the roof" earlier this year due to an television advertising blitz touting their potential health benefits.

Owner of the Rock-On health food store Jane Dier said her sales for coral calcium had rocketed around 500 percent after an infomercial on television featuring Bob Barefoot, who she said was "very convincing" about the benefits of the supplement.

"The run down was that it could cure everything. When that started our sales went through the roof. Bermudians were going crazy over it. The sales have dropped off a bit over the summer but that's probably a seasonal thing."

And Down-To-Earth health food store manager Gilbert Darrell estimated sales of the pills to have gone up by a third when the craze was at its height, five or six months ago, although he added they are "not as popular now as they were".

In an article in last week's edition of the newsletter Holistic Voices, environmentalist Nives Filice said the extraction of coral calcium involved processes of mining and vacuuming that either directly harm live coral or increase sedimentation that damages surrounding organisms.

"They're basically going to the countries that will take a dollar," she said. "I don't think we should be benefiting from something to the detriment of the environment, especially with the way these supplements are being mass marketed. When the reefs go, that is a real problem."

She pointed out that in Bermuda, the law protects even dead coral from being removed from the sea floor.

"We know how devastating it would be if we started harvesting coral from our reefs, so we should not encourage this practice in other countries. I therefore ask that Bermudians stop purchasing this product and ask that local businesses remove it from their shelves."

Ms Filice's article referred to a report by the Coral Reef Alliance (www.coralreefalliance.org), dated May, 2003, which said the production of these supplements "may be harming" reefs or other eco-systems.

But the website article acknowledged that there had been "no studies that specifically looked at the impact of the coral calcium industry".

The website said mining for coral calcium can increase sedimentation and kill remaining live coral.

"The removal of the reef structure (dead or alive) decreases habitat for fish and other animals and may affect the reef's ability to protect beaches and islands, leading to beach erosion," it added.

And it said vacuuming for calcium from corals can "increase sediments in the water column that will affect local live coral as well as organisms living in the water column such as plankton."

Mr. Darrell said he was not aware of any definitive evidence that said the extraction of coral calciums were harmful to reefs.

"We haven't had any information to say whether they harvest live coral or not. But coming from a place like Bermuda, if we found it was having a dangerous effect we wouldn't sell them... But nobody has come up with anything that proves they are. I can't imagine that they are doing that."

He pointed out that coral calcium supplements should not be seen as a replacement for other sources of calcium but rather as a source of beneficial minerals.

"It should really be labelled coral minerals. The jury is still out on its effects but it's primarily supposed to keep the body neutral and reduce acidity, which is a good thing."

Ms Dier said she knew the brand of coral calcium she sold to be harvested from dead fossilised coral in Okinawa, an island in the Pacific Ocean.

However, the Coral Reef Alliance said it believed even mining fossilised coral on land "can create sediment and erosion that harms the entire watershed."

Ms Dier said several of her customers had said they were sleeping better at night or their muscles were less stiff after taking the pills for a period.

But she added, while she "shrugged her shoulders" over whether all of the claims on the television infomercial were true, it was likely any tangible benefits came from marine minerals in the supplements, which make the cells more alkaline.