Despite this, the public continues to hear that more calcium is better because “many companies with vested interests” in sales of supplements and dairy products “sponsor influential organizations and academic opinion leaders”, lead researcher Dr. Mark Bolland, associate professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, said in an e-mail.
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Increasing intake of calcium – found in dairy products such as milk and cheese – does not improve the bone health of older adults, new research finds.
Most of the studies showed people over 50 get no benefit at all from taking either calcium supplements or from eating calcium in food.
“Collectively these results suggest that clinicians, advocacy organizations and health policymakers should not recommend increasing calcium intake for fracture prevention either with calcium supplements or through dietary sources”, the authors write.
But he said: ‘The evidence now available, however, gives us a strong signal that calcium supplements with or without vitamin D do not protect older people in general from fractures.
The first study showed that increasing calcium intake produced increases in bone mineral density of one to two per cent, which was unlikely to significantly lower the risk of fracture, Dr Bolland said.
“Dietary calcium intake is not associated with risk of fracture, and there is no clinical trial evidence that increasing calcium intake from dietary sources prevents fractures”, they wrote.
The researchers only found one study that supported increased calcium intake for lower fracture risk, but noted that the study, published in 1992, was in a frail population with notable vitamin D deficiency (vitamin D is also often recommended to prevent fracture in older adults).
Those included a moderate risk of minor side effects such as constipation, and a small risk of severe side effects such as cardiovascular events, kidney stones, and acute gastrointestinal symptoms.
The weight of evidence against such mass medication of older people is now compelling, and it is surely time to reconsider these controversial recommendations, he concludes.
Health firms market the tablets to millions of people with the promise they will keep your bones healthy.
Researchers said it was “puzzling” that organisations such as the worldwide Osteoporosis Foundation continued to promote intakes so high that most people over the age of 50 would need to take a supplement.
“There is a few evidence that aging results in both a reduction in calcium absorption and an increase in calcium loss, hence the higher calcium requirements recommended for older men and women”, she said.
‘Recently, concerns have emerged about the risk-benefit profile of calcium supplements.
“Fourteen of the 26 trials studied calcium alone, eight studied calcium and vitamin D, and four were multi-arm or factorial studies of both agents”. However, the researchers concluded that this increase was not enough to meaningfully reduce a person’s risk of fracture.
“The article flags the need for manufacturers to be required to substantiate their claims to a high level so that consumers are not being misled as to any health claims and by dubious research”.
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The studies analysed randomised controlled trials and observational studies of extra dietary or supplemental calcium in women and men aged over 50.
