Do you know vitami.n C lowers bloo.d pressur.e?
June 11, 2008 -- People, especially the elderly, may reach for calcium supplements in
hopes of protecting themselves against bone fractures in case of a fall. But a
recent analysis of several studies found no reduction in risk of hip fracture
with calcium supplementation.
The analysis was supported in part by the
Agricultural Research Service (ARS). It
comes on the heels of another ARS-funded study suggesting that today's current
recommended amount of dietary calcium for American adults may be greater than
actually needed. ARS is a scientific research agency of the
U.S. Department of
Agriculture.
Bess Dawson-Hughes and colleagues in academia and medicine researched
calcium intake studies that had been published between January 1960 and
December 2006. They also systematically searched information from biomedical
databases, reference lists and abstracts for the study review.
Dawson-Hughes is director of the Bone Metabolism Laboratory at the
Jean
Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at
Tufts University, Boston, Mass. The
analysis was published in the American Journal
of Clinical Nutrition.
Among the studies that met the researchers' screening criteria, seven
included a total of 170,991 women with nearly 3,000 hip fractures. Five of the
studies included a total of 68,606 men with 214 hip fractures. Pooled results
from those studies suggest that calcium intake is not appreciably associated
with hip fracture risk in women or men. That means the researchers did not find
that a higher calcium intake reduced the incidence of hip fractures.
Hip fractures are the most frequent and severe fractures among the
elderly, and experts estimate the average cost of care at $29,000 per patient.
Increased calcium intake is still commonly recommended as a single fracture
prevention strategy, although considerable uncertainty exists regarding optimal
intakes of calcium, the authors wrote. For example, for adults over age 50, the
recommended calcium intake is 700 milligrams (mg) daily in the United Kingdom,
but 1,200 mg daily in the United States.
The authors concluded that the findings do not support an overall
benefit from greater-than-average calcium intake.
Future studies of fracture prevention should focus on the best
combination of calcium plus vitamin D, rather than on calcium supplementation
alone, according to authors.
