Calcium, Vitamin D Help Some Older Women

There’s new evidence today that calcium and vitamin D help protect some women, particularly older women, against the hip fractures that can leave them disabled or dead.

The biggest benefit, a 29 percent reduction in hip fractures, went to women who were conscientious about getting recommended amounts of calcium and vitamin D, according to research published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine.

Hip fractures fell 21 percent among women age 60 and older who took the supplements, even if they didn’t always take the recommended dose.

But researchers were expecting even greater protection . And the supplements didn’t result in a statistically significant reduction in the women’s overall risk of suffering spinal or other fractures. Researchers also didn’t confirm hints from earlier studies suggesting calcium and vitamin D helped protect against colon cancer.

Nevertheless, Dr. Karen Johnson was upbeat about the results. She directed the study’s local arm and is a University of Tennessee Health Science Center professor.

“The study does point out the importance of getting your calcium, especially if you have low bone mineral density. It is particularly important as you age and your fracture risk goes up,” she said.

But Dr. Norman Lasser at New Jersey Medical School said the study is “not as ringing an endorsement of calcium as one might like.”

Dr. Joel Finkelstein of Massachusetts General Hospital noted, ” It’s a good start, but women at higher risk need to know it’s not enough.”

The study involved 36,282 women who had completed menopause and were age 50 through 79 when they joined the project. In Memphis, 909 women participated. Johnson said none were at high risk for the bone- thinning disease osteoporosis, which affects an estimated 10 million Americans.

The work was part of the $450 million federal Women’s Health Initiative study of ways to combat death and disability in older women.

For this study, half the volunteers were assigned to take supplements totaling 1,000 milligrams of calcium and 400 units of vitamin D daily. Half took inactive pills.

Virginia Foust, 79, of Southaven wound up taking the calcium and vitamin D. Never much of a milk drinker, she credits the pills with giving her bones strength enough to withstand four falls in the past five years.

” It never even made me sore,” said Foust, recalling the time she slipped on her newly mopped kitchen floor and fell on her hip. Last summer she turned her ankle stepping off a curb, “fell on my hip and hit the ground as hard as anyone.”

She also didn’t experience calcium’s side effects, including constipation and a 17 percent increase in kidney stones. “Kidney stones are very painful, but they have low mortality. People die from hip fractures all the time,” Johnson said.

Investigators noted that many women who joined the seven-year study were at low-risk for osteoporosis because they were age 70 or younger, they were overweight, taking hormone-replacement therapy or were already getting the recommended doses of calcium and vitamin D. In a statement, Dr. Rebecca Jackson, the study’s lead investigator, said that made it tougher to show a significant finding.

Some researchers said the effect would have been clearer with higher doses of vitamin D, perhaps up to 1,000 units daily.

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Calcium benefits

The study: Researchers found calcium and vitamin D supplements provided some protection against broken hips. The greatest benefit went to women ages 60 and older and volunteers who did the best job of getting recommended daily amounts of those nutrients.

Study requirements: Supplements totaling 1,000 milligrams of calcium and 400 units of vitamin D daily. Vitamin D helps the body absorb the calcium.

Federal guidelines: Nutritionists recommend that following menopause women get 1,200 milligrams of calcium and 400 to 600 units of vitamin D daily.

Calcium sources:

Milk, 1 cup, 300 mg

Spinach, 1 cup, 100 mg

Broccoli, 1 cup, 45 mg

On the Web

For more information on the study, visit the Web site for the New England Journal of Medicine at nejm.org

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