Should There Be a Dietary Guideline for Calcium Intake? No

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-2000

Keywords

Bone and Bones, Calcium, Calcium, Dietary, Female, Fractures, Bone, Humans, Nutrition Policy, Osteoporosis, Postmenopausal

Abstract

In preparing this manuscript I took the privilege of using the minutes of the September 1998 meeting of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, which was held in Washington, DC (1). During that meeting, Cutberto Garza, in his introductory remarks to the committee, mentioned a list of 5 C’s: confusion, change, complexity, controversy, and challenge. These same words often came to mind when I was synthesizing the information for this article. The five C’s relative to calcium as given below provide a format for the discussion of why there should not be a specific guideline for calcium within the 2000 edition of the dietary guidelines: 1) confusion as to why there should be a separate guideline for calcium, 2) change in the recommended intakes within the guidelines, 3) complexity of the role of diet in explaining bone mass and fracture risk, 4) controversy surrounding fracture data, and 5) challenges in maximizing bone mass and preventing osteoporotic fractures.

Publication Title

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

Volume

71

Issue

3

First Page

661

Last Page

664

DOI of Published Version

10.1093/ajcn/71.3.661

PMID

10702154

Publisher

American Society of Clinical Nutrition

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