{"id":7924,"date":"2011-04-20T14:53:11","date_gmt":"2011-04-20T18:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/?p=7924"},"modified":"2011-07-19T17:44:27","modified_gmt":"2011-07-19T21:44:27","slug":"new-whi-analysis-links-calcium-supplements-to-cv-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/2011\/04\/20\/new-whi-analysis-links-calcium-supplements-to-cv-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"New WHI Analysis Links Calcium Supplements to CV Risk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A new analysis may renew concerns that the combination of calcium  supplements and vitamin D might increase cardiovascular risk. The  link has been proposed before, but the Women&#8217;s Health Initiative  (WHI) found no additional risk. Now, however, in<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/content\/342\/bmj.d2040\"> an article  appearing in <em>BMJ<\/em><\/a>, Mark Bolland and colleagues point out  that more than half the 36,000 women in the WHI were taking calcium  supplements at the start of the trial.<\/p>\n<p>In a reanalysis of data  from the 16,718 WHI participants who were not taking calcium supplements at  the trial&#8217;s start, the investigators found a 16%  increase in the risk for MI and stroke in the group randomized to calcium  supplements and vitamin D compared with placebo (P=0.05). A meta-analysis  combining the new WHI data with data from previous trials turned up a similar  pattern of increased CV risk associated with calcium supplements. The  authors did not find a dose-response relationship between calcium supplements and  CV risk. They speculate that &#8220;the abrupt change in plasma calcium  concentration after supplement ingestion causes the adverse effect,  rather than it being related to the total calcium load ingested.&#8221; They  conclude that &#8220;a reassessment of the role of calcium supplements in  osteoporosis management is warranted.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>However, in<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bmj.com\/content\/342\/bmj.d2080.full\"> an  accompanying editorial<\/a>, Bo Abrahamsen and Opinder Sahota write that  &#8220;insufficient evidence is available to support or refute the  association.&#8221; They write that further studies are needed to resolve the  ongoing debate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new analysis may renew concerns that the combination of calcium supplements and vitamin D might increase cardiovascular risk. The link has been proposed before, but the Women&#8217;s Health Initiative (WHI) found no additional risk. Now, however, in an article appearing in BMJ, Mark Bolland and colleagues point out that more than half the 36,000 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[243,808,809],"class_list":["post-7924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-prevention","tag-calcium-supplements","tag-vitamin-d","tag-whi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}