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Clinicians often tell patients to increase their dietary calcium intake and prescribe calcium supplements to prevent and manage osteoporosis. In this meta-analysis of 59 randomized controlled trials, investigators determined whether raising dietary calcium intake (15 trials with 1500 patients) and taking calcium supplements (51 trials with 12,000 patients) increases bone-mineral density (BMD). Participants (nearly all women; age, ≥50 at baseline) had undergone baseline and postintervention BMD testing.
Increasing dietary calcium intake (to 250–3320 mg daily) significantly increased baseline BMD by 0.6% to 1.0% at the total hip and total body at 1 year and by 0.7% to 1.8% at the total hip, total body, femoral neck, and lumbar spine at 2 years…