Calcium Supplements Reduce Bone Fractures, but Only if You Take Them

You've heard it before. Brittle bones lead to more fractures, especially in post-menopausal women who are susceptible to osteoporosis. Studies show that calcium can help maintain bone health. But, supplementation has to be daily - not once in a while or once a week or whenever you happen to remember!

The majority of post-menopausal women are susceptible to osteoporosis as their estrogen levels decline. This leads to greater excretion of calcium and results in more brittle bones prone to fracture. In this study, the women who took calcium supplements twice a day reduced their risk of breaking a bone, but getting them to consistently take the supplements was a problem.

The study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, lead researchers to state that they believed calcium supplementation may not be a good public health approach to fracture prevention, not because they don't work, but because of the lack of long-term compliance. Nearly half the 1,460 healthy women who participated in the study did not consistently take the twice-daily 600 mg supplements.

However, among the women in the study who took at least 80 percent of their assigned calcium, only 10 percent suffered a fracture within one year compared to 15 percent of the women who regularly took a placebo. Therefore, taking extra calcium in supplement form did significantly help those women who took them regularly.

The results of this study illustrate two important points: negative conclusions reported in some supplement studies may be a result of poor compliance, not the failure of the supplement itself, and supplements won't likely be effective if they are not taken consistently.

Arch Intern Med. 2006;166:869-875