Much to the shock of many medical experts, a government advisory panel recently recommended that people stop taking vitamin D and calcium supplements.  Before you go clearing your medicine box, let’s take a look at how the study was done and how it matches up with years of research to support daily vitamin D and calcium supplement intake. 

The study focused on whether vitamin D and calcium supplements can help prevent bone fractures in healthy menopausal women and found results to be inconclusive – therefor recommending that people simply stop taking them.  This immediately drew the ire of researchers who have long found that diet alone is not sufficient enough to provide the levels necessary to increase bone density and prevent fractures.

For one, the Women’s Health Initiative found that the vitamin D dose used in the study may have been too low.  The Women’s Health Initiative also found that because the control group already had sufficient levels of calcium, it is harder to show the benefits by comparison.

The thing about vitamin D is we all get it in different ways.  People who live in the south may not have any deficiency while people who live in the north may find very low amounts of vitamin D during the winter months since we get this nutrient from sunlight.  Vitamin D is necessary to help pull calcium into the bones – this is why many calcium supplements include vitamin D already.

Calcium is an obviously important nutrient necessary for maintaining bone health, especially in post-menopausal women and the elderly because they have the highest risk of bone fractures and osteoporosis.  As with many necessary nutrients, many people just aren’t getting enough of it in their diet.  This is why so many researchers in the past have consistently recommended supplementing your diet with calcium and vitamin D capsules.

While the government panel may have found the results inconclusive, the Women’s Health Initiative study of 36,282 post-menopausal women found that supplements can reduce the risk of fractures by 10% to 11%.  The Institute of Medicine has a general recommended dose of 600 IUs to 800 IUs of vitamin D and 700 to a 1300 milligrams of calcium each day.  Since many people are not getting the calcium they need or may not be processing calcium properly, it is important to talk to you doctor about filling the gap with calcium and vitamin D supplements.