CONCLUSIONS 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 .
OBJECTIVE To examine the evidence underpinning recommendations to increase calcium intake through dietary sources or calcium supplements to prevent fractures .
Milk supplementation of the diet of postmenopausal Chinese women on a low calcium intake retards bone loss.
The Chinese diet is low in calcium ( less than 500 mg/day on average ) , and previous observational studies have suggested an association between a low calcium intake and risk of hip and vertebral fracture . In this study , we r and omly assigned 200 postmenopausal Chinese women ( age range , 55 - 59 years ) to receive 50 g of milk powder containing 800 mg of calcium per day or to a control group . The following are the mean percentage changes ( and SEs ) in height and bone mineral density ( BMD ) over 24 months : for height , -0.1 + /- 0.2 cm in the milk supplementation group and -0.2 + /- 0.1 cm in the control group ; for BMD at the total hip , -0.06 + /- 0.22 % in the milk supplementation group and -0.88 + /- 0.26 % in the control group ; for BMD at the spine ( L1-L4 ) , -0.56 + /- 0.29 % in the milk supplementation group and -1.5 + /- 0.29 % in the control group ; for total body BMD , -0.32 + /- 0.16 % in the milk supplementation group and -1.2 + /- 0.19 % in the control group ( p < 0.05 by analysis of covariance [ ANCOVA ] for repeated measures for height and BMD at all sites ) . The milk supplementation group had less loss in terms of both height and BMD than the control group ( p < 0.05 by ANCOVA for repeated measures ) . Serum parathyroid hormone ( PTH ) concentration was lower and serum 25-hyroxyvitamin D [ 25(OH)D ] level was higher in the milk supplementation group than the control group at 12 months ( p < 0.05 by paired t-test ) . We conclude that supplementing the diet of postmenopausal Chinese women with high calcium milk powder retards bone loss
CONCLUSIONS 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 .
OBJECTIVE To examine the evidence underpinning recommendations to increase calcium intake through dietary sources or calcium supplements to prevent fractures .