Apanemia Health Centre

Although there have been many times in question, calcium supplementation with or without vitamin D appear to be effective in halting the osteoporosis and, therefore, the prevention of fractures, according to results of a review of numerous investigations.
Lack of calcium and vitamin D are two important factors in the loss of bone health. Although many studies have investigated the effect of supplementation with these substances on the risk of fractures, the results are contradictory.

A team from the University of Western Sydney, New South Wales (Australia) has undertaken a comprehensive review of studies conducted to date on this subject to draw a conclusion on the effectiveness of this treatment. Thus, analyzed data from 17 clinical trials, which were involved nearly 64,000 participants, mostly women over age 60.

Reduced Risk of Fracture
The main conclusion of this review was that the intake of calcium alone or in combination with vitamin D was associated with a fracture risk reduction of 12%. In addition, researchers found that those participants who had faithfully complied with their treatment had an even lower risk, 24%.

This study, published in the journal ‘The Lancet’, offers another striking fact is that adding vitamin D to therapy does not improve outcomes on osteoporosis, something that had been said in many previous works.

On the other hand, research found that the most effective treatment is to administer 1200 mg of calcium, or more, or a minimum dose of 800 IU of vitamin D.

Age is also another parameter that affects the efficacy of therapy. It was found that the reduction in fracture risk was lower among younger people (50-70 years) than in those over 70 years.

“Our meta-analysis shows that calcium supplementation, alone or in combination with vitamin D, are effective in the preventive treatment of osteoporotic fracture,” say the authors.

These researchers estimate that would be needed to treat 63 patients for a median of 3.5 years to prevent one fracture. “The profitability of selecting a specific age group [to receive this therapy], as persons of 70 or more years, should be assessed in future studies,” they conclude.

For his part, Jean-Yves Reginster, Unit Bone and Cartilage Metabolism, Liege, Belgium, praised in an editorial, which also publishes ‘The Lancet’, the value of this study evaluated the number of data and the answers offered on this therapy.

The contribution of this work is “important because it paves the way for future research aimed at improving clinical use, pharmacological and economic development of calcium and vitamin D in patients at high risk of osteoporotic fractures,” Reginster concludes.