Better bones: Will calcium and vitamin D help?
The confusion for women about whether or not to take supplements is at an all-time high. ‘Today’ contributor Dr. Judith Reichman sheds some light
By Dr. Judith Reichman
For the past decade, women have been exhorted to cut down on fat consumption and to get their calcium and vitamin D, through nutrition, sunlight and supplements.
Then, last month the promise that doing this every day, would keep the doctor away, appeared to be broken, when results from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), clinical trial were published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM.) Medical contributor, Dr. Judith Reichman was invited to appear on “Today” to shed some light on how women should process this information and what the studies mean. Here’s more on the subject:
The Women’s Health Initiative study was the first federally funded study by the U.S. Government to look solely at women. It was initially designed to look at whether diets (low-fat diets, calcium and vitamin d supplements) had an effect on major diseases — primarily breast cancer, colorectal cancer and osteoporosis. Later heart disease was added to the study initiatives. Forty-eight thousand post-menopausal women (with the average age of 63) were tracked. (Fourteen thousand also participated in the hormone study that made news in 2002.)