Calcium supplements not recommended for bone strength????

SbetaK

Interesting article on the web today. Says Calcium supplements not useful, maybe even harmful. Any comments?
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/diet-fitness/calcium-supplements-or-dairy-doesnt-strengthen-bones-study-finds-n435726

armylife

Not really groundbreaking news, most supplements have little or questionable research behind them. Once they are researched a best case scenario effects within the margin of error. Also, the manner in which osteoclasts and osteoblasts work tends to indicate taking any more than the recommend amount of calcium would be useless. Basically the body is very efficient at using the existing material to produce bone. There is a good YouTube video that details how the cells work and conduct remodeling.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=78RBpWSOl08

Yi5hedr3

We get too much calcium and not enough magnesium, which is what folks really need to take.

fannyfrost

Supplements are not the best way to get your vitamins. Actually for men taking supplements has been linked to higher risk of prostate cancer. Yet we continue to take them. Sheldon said it on Big Bang Theory "all those will give you is expensive pee" and its true. Most of the time the supplements we take just leave immediately.

The best way to get your vitamins is from food. I hate milk (figured out I am lactose intolerant). When I was pregnant I wanted to make sure I got enough calcium. I will have some cheese, but don't like most and the ones I like have the least calcium. So I bought powdered milk and added it to some of the foods I ate. It boosted the calcium without it tasting like milk. You know Borden's powdered milk. So if you really need it from diet there are ways besides calcium fortified foods. Oh and because I had horrible heartburn during pregnancy they told me use Tums it will help the heartburn and add calcium.

Now I take calcium/magnesium/zinc. Supposedly the magnesium helps you absorb the calcium, but my Doctor told me to take calcium. Is it really working. I don't know. I take my vitamins at night which is also different than Doctors recommend. The reason though is that I take iron and can't take that with my Thyroid medicine.

SbetaK

I haven't used calcium supplements, and have encountered many friends and medical professionals admonishing me for not taking them because I am an older woman. Interesting that this article follows my personal agenda. I am very physically active so hopefully that is helping keep my bones strong. Enjoyed the video.

Sam_I_Am77

The only thing I'll say about this is to go find the actual studies that are being mentioned and others if possible. Unfortunately you're hearing this information 2nd-hand and not direct from the paper and writers can put their own slant on these topics. It's important to understand the population, control group, and full intervention applied to the experimental group. Also, understand the results at the end to see how they were correlated and determine if the results of the intervention are also repeatable.

Cherimoose

I took a quick look at the actual review and they only found 2 randomised controlled trials, both of them actually said supplementation helped:

"oral Ca supplements prevented a femoral BMD decrease and lowered vertebral fracture rate in the elderly."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7812072

"supplementing the diet of postmenopausal Chinese women with high calcium milk powder retards bone loss."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11547841

As far as the observational studies, maybe people took supplements to try to self-treat pre-existing problems or because bone problems ran in their family. That's why observational studies don't prove causality, only association.

Sam_I_Am77

Cherimoose wrote: »

I took a quick look at the actual review and they only found 2 randomised controlled trials, both of them actually said supplementation helped:

"oral Ca supplements prevented a femoral BMD decrease and lowered vertebral fracture rate in the elderly."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7812072

"supplementing the diet of postmenopausal Chinese women with high calcium milk powder retards bone loss."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11547841

As far as the observational studies, maybe people took supplements to try to self-treat pre-existing problems or because bone problems ran in their family. That's why observational studies don't prove causality, only association.

Nice. As @Cherimoose showed us, this is why you do your own research and don't take the media (TV, Radio, Magazines, Blogs, Web-Sites) word for anything they claim.

canary_girl

I've read that taking calcium supplements are counterindicated for osteoporosis as well. Too late for my MIL, she's already been diagnosed with an early form of osteoporosis. I've been encouraging her to start lifting weights to help bone strength, but she doesn't see the need. And she admonishes me whenever I see her about not taking my calcium. I try to roll my eyes away from her.

Interestingly, I did a research paper years ago about anorexia and one source I found studied the effects of prohibiting young (20-something) women who had been diagnosed with anorexia from weight bearing exercise. They found that the group that had been prohibited from exercise suffered more bone loss than their counterparts who had been allowed to exercise.

armylife

Cherimoose wrote: »

I took a quick look at the actual review and they only found 2 randomised controlled trials, both of them actually said supplementation helped:

"oral Ca supplements prevented a femoral BMD decrease and lowered vertebral fracture rate in the elderly."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7812072

"supplementing the diet of postmenopausal Chinese women with high calcium milk powder retards bone loss."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11547841

As far as the observational studies, maybe people took supplements to try to self-treat pre-existing problems or because bone problems ran in their family. That's why observational studies don't prove causality, only association.

That was not the result the review found.

"In summary, our analyses indicate that dietary calcium intake is not associated with risk of fracture, and there is no evidence currently that increasing dietary calcium intake prevents fractures. Calcium supplements have small inconsistent benefits on fracture reduction but probably have an unfavourable risk:benefit profile. There was no risk reduction in fracture at any site in pooled analyses of the randomised controlled trials of calcium supplements at lowest risk of bias, and there was evidence of publication bias in small-moderate sized trials. Collectively, these results suggest that clinicians, advocacy organisations, and health policymakers should not recommend increasing calcium intake for fracture prevention, either with calcium supplements or through dietary sources."

The big issue was indicated bias was in funnel plot inspections and Egger's regression on the 26 randomized studies testing supplemental dietary calcium.

Basically it says there is no evidence to support the claim and they recommend removing the recommendations from medical and public health practices.