Risk factors for osteoporosis in Europe

TLDR: Case-control and cohort studies conducted in Norway, Sweden, Italy, Italy and Norway did not show an association between calcium intake and the risk of hip fractures, and recent epidemiologic studies suggest that calcium may be a threshold element.

Abstract: Calcium intake may affect bone accretion in childhood and adolescence, the development of peak bone mass in young adulthood, and the rate of bone loss in postmenopausal and elderly women. Some of the earliest evidence between calcium intake and fracture was from Europe. In Yugoslavia, the fracture rate was much higher and the bone mineral density was much lower in a population living in a low-calcium intake area than those living in a high-calcium intake area [14]. Recent epidemiologic studies conducted in Europe suggest that calcium may be a threshold element. In a population where the dietary calcium intake is high, little association was observed between calcium intake and bone mineral density. For instance, Cooper et al. did not find an association between the relative risk of hip fracture and calcium intake in the UK [15]. Such negative findings were replicated in a nested case-control study by Wickham et al. [16]. The results of other epidemiologic studies that have been conducted are mostly negative, and in the countries in which these studies were conducted, calcium intake was fairly high. Case-control and cohort studies conducted in Norway [17], Sweden [18], Italy [19] and Norway [20] did not show an association between calcium intake and the risk of hip fractures. The MEDOS study is a multicenter case-control study con