We all know that as we grow old our bone become weak and chances of fracture injury increases. This is because of a bone degenerative condition known osteoporosis.Osteoporosis a condition in which with age the bone become porous, that are normally solid and strong in younger people. Doctors usually prescribe calcium supplementation for osteoporosis in later age when diagnosed with osteoporosis.
But a recent study1 reveals that calcium supplementation a little earlier, i.e, age of 35 or young can prevent risk of osteoporosis later in life. The study was published in online journal eLife. Let us find more about this study.
Effect of calcium supplementation in people under 35 years old
It is a well known fact that calcium supplementation is very important for the treatment of osteoporosis. Presently this supplementation is normally prescribed when someone is diagnosed with osteoporosis commonly seen after the age of 50 years. However, numerous recent research have concluded that there is no evidence for associations between calcium supplements and reduced risk of fracture or improvement of bone density in people aged over 50 years1.
Scientist at Wenzhou Medical University, China were curious whether calcium supplementation in people under 35 years can prevent osteoporosis later in life. For this the researcher choose to analyze data from 43 research papers from various journals published till April 25, 2021. It involved roughly 7382 participants. The journals from where the data wal collected includes
- Pubmed,
- Embase,
- ProQuest,
- CENTRAL,
- WHO Global Index Medicus,
- Clinical Trials.gov,
- WHO ICTRP,
- China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and
- Wanfang
In most of the study the daily calcium dosage did not exceed 1000 mg/day and calcium supplementation intervention odes not exceeded than 2 years.
Actually a healthy bone has a sufficient mass that makes it strong. The bone mass gradually increases from childhood till 20 to 35 years of age. After 35 the bone mass gradually declines making it porous and weak. This is why elderly are more prone to fracture of hip due to fall injury.
According to study, osteoporosis is more prevalent in females and is seen more in African and European countries 2.
In the present study, Chinese doctors analysed data from all these research and the results were encouraging.
Result
The result of the study is encouraging, it finds that there was significant improvement in BMD especially at femoral neck. Femoral neck is the anatomical term for the upper part of thigh bone at hip. Here it would be crucial to mention that most of the fracture after fall injury in seniors happen at femoral neck.
The study concludes that the person taking calcium supplements early in life before 35 years of age are less likely to develop osteoporosis later in life. So, this is reminder for younger people to start adding calcium supplementation to your diet from today.
Keep Reading: Osteoporosis: Poor sleep may risk bone weakness|Study
The author is a physiotherapist who has been practising for the last 17 years. He owns a successful physiotherapy clinic named "Physiofirst" in Rourkela, Odisha, India.
He holds a Bachelor's in Physiotherapy (BPT) from SVNIRTAR (Swami Vivekananda National Institute of Rehabilitation and Research), one of the prestigious physiotherapy schools in India.
Taking every pain and disability case as a challenge is his motto. Whatever he learns dealing with his patient, he shares it with the world through blogs and e-books.
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