Hormone-Calcium Link Eyed

A hormone that helps the body absorb calcium apparently is ineffective for treating women who already have the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis, researchers report. The study found the hormone calcitriol failed to increase bone mass among a group of 72 post-menopausal women with osteoporosis.

“The goal of treatment of post-menopausal osteoporosis is to prevent further fractures,” said Drs. Susan Ott and Charles Chestnut III of the University of Washington, Seattle, in reporting their findings in the Annals of Internal Medicine. “However, in our sample there was no trend toward an improvement in fracture rate.”

Ott and Chestnut’s two-year calcitriol study involved 72 post-menopausal women ages 50 to 80. All the women received calcium supplements and either calcitriol or a placebo.

Calcitriol did appear to increase the absorption of calcium and there was no evidence that it increased bone loss, but neither was there evidence that bone mass increased, they said.