Calcium and Vitamin D are still important!

The Institute of Medicine Report was published yesterday and I watched the national news outlets do the report a disservice--those darn sound bites just can't capture the complexity of the report. (The complete report can be found on the IOM website http://www.iom.edu/).

The report concluded that there is not enough evidence to increase the recommended intakes for vitamin D or calcium but that is far from saying that we don't need these 2 critical nutrients for bone health. Most people don't get the recommended amounts of these nutrients in their diets but that message was lost in the reporting. I would not want women of any age to abandon their efforts to get calcium from their diet or supplements. I always recommend food first and there are more foods with added calcium--from orange juice to breakfast cereals--available in the grocery store. A recent study looked at calcium intake in post menopausal women and found that dairy foods were the number one source of calcium for white women but grains contribued the most calcium to the diets of black women.

Older women who don't get enough calcium should use calcium citrate supplements--they are better absorbed than calcium carbonate supplements as we age. But, more isn't better and I think that is what the report was trying to stress.

The more controversial part of the report was on Vitamin D; this nutrient is also crucial for bone health--nobody disagrees with that--but there are also claims that this sunshine vitamin also plays a role in diabetes, heart disease, auto-immune diseases and some cancers. It is not surprising to me that the report did not find a strong link with Vitamin D and other disorders because the research is emerging and no conclusions can be reached. Science moves slowly but the media reports every little study as if a cure for every disease was as simple as popping a supplement. The hype is often well ahead of the science.

So, don't throw away your supplements--make sure to get adequate, not excessive, calcium and vitamin D in your diet and then add what is missing from supplements. Remember that supplements are meant to supplement diet--not replace it.