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Vitamin Supplements For Broken Bones
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| Vitamins can reduce fractures in elderly - Tufts Univ researchers recommend daily supplements of vitamin D and calcium to prevent broken bones - Brief Article One of the most dangerous and costly health problems associated with growing old -- the risk of broken bones -- can be cut significantly with inexpensive daily supplements of calcium and vitamin D, suggest researchers at Tufts University, Boston, Mass. continued below... |
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Scientists at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts tracked the results of moderate supplementation with the two nutrients in a group of 389 healthy men and women age 65 and older over a three-year period. Half the participants received daily supplements that included 500 milligrams of calcium and 700 units of vitamin D. The other half took placebos.
Those who got the extra nutrients fared better when measured for the bone loss that commonly occurs in old age and leads to osteoporosis. Moreover, they did far better when it came to broken bones. Over the course of the study, nearly 13% of the placebo group suffered fractures, compared with less than six percent of those taking the supplements.
According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, 28,000,000 Americans either have osteoporosis or are at high risk of developing the disease. in the ., treating hip and bone fractures associated with the disease costs more than $13,000,000,000 a year.
Participants in the Tufts study had been getting slightly more than 700 mg of calcium a day from their diets alone. With the added supplements, those who showed the beneficial results were getting about 1,200 mg of calcium a day, an amount that matches the National Institute of Medicine's new recommended intake of calcium for persons over age 50. (For years, these guidelines, n as the RDAs, recommended that adults get 800 mg of calcium a day, but revised the guidelines substantially upward in 1997, especially for seniors.)
An earlier French study produced positive results when the same two nutrients were given to very elderly women confined to nursing homes. The Tufts study shows that what was helpful to that high-risk, institutionalized group is equally beneficial to people who are younger, healthier, and living at home.
What is not yet known, indicates Bess Dawson-Hughes, professor of medicine, is exactly how the two nutrients reduce the risk of bone fractures. "The calcium and D are working in ways that aren't entirely related to their effects on bone density because the difference in bone density change between the two treatment groups is not enough to account for the substantial fracture reduction. You'd have to change bone mineral density a whole lot more if that were the only way the calcium and D were working."
While getting calcium from food sources is best, she says, supplements sometimes may be needed, particularly for older people. Men and women over age 65 typically consume 500 to 700 mg of calcium a day. A person would need a well-balanced diet, including three daily servings of dairy products, to get the 1,200 mg of calcium that proved beneficial in the study