Study Shows That Calcium in the Diet Can Prevent Tumors in the Intestine

Adding calcium to the diet can keep you from getting tumors in your large intestine. The effect is moderate but significant, Dr. J.A. Baron of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., writes in today’s New England Journal of Medicine.

The study looked at 832 people who underwent surgery for colorectal adenomas--benign tumors--at six hospitals around the country. About half got calcium supplements and half got placebos. In the second through fourth years of the study, the main risk period, 127 of the 409 people taking calcium had developed at least one adenoma, compared with 159 of the 423 taking placebos.

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Compiled by Times medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II