Skip to main content
ARS Home » Plains Area » Grand Forks, North Dakota » Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center » Healthy Body Weight Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #222083
Title: Letter to Editor - "Reply to RP Heaney"

Author
item Hunt, Curtiss
item JOHNSON, LUANN - UNIV OF NORTH DAKOTA

Submitted to: The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Publication Type: Other
Publication Acceptance Date: 1/15/2008
Publication Date: 6/1/2008
Citation: Hunt, C., Johnson, L.K. 2008. Letter to Editor - "Reply to RP Heaney". American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 87(6):1961

Interpretive Summary: A letter to the editor was submitted in reply to a letter written to the editor of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition regarding a recent publication (Hunt, CD. and Johnson, LK. Calcium requirements: new estimations for men and women by cross-sectional statistical analyses of calcium balance data from metabolic studies. Am. J. Clin. Nutr.86:1054-62, 2007) which described a study that carefully compared calcium intake to calcium output in healthy adults to determine the point of neutral calcium balance. The author of the letter questioned our use of a “balance”-based approach to estimate the calcium requirements for American adults aged 19-75 years. The author also indicated that a large body of literature demonstrates substantial calcium-related health benefits produced by higher intakes than those needed to assure neutral balance. In our reply we asserted that our calcium balance-based approach to estimating the calcium requirement expands and refines the approach used by the Food and Nutrition Board in their final report. We also indicated that our data also show a slow but inexorable increase in positive calcium balance with increasing calcium intake above the point of neutral balance. We suggested a re-evaluation of the rationale for advocating calcium intakes higher than those needed to assure balance because there is mounting evidence that calcium supplementation may be detrimental to bone and kidney health, and that there is clear indication that menopausal bone loss cannot be substantially influenced by diet.

Technical Abstract: A letter to the editor was submitted in reply to a letter written to the editor of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition regarding a recent publication (Hunt, CD. and Johnson, LK. Calcium requirements: new estimations for men and women by cross-sectional statistical analyses of calcium balance data from metabolic studies. Am. J. Clin. Nutr.86:1054-62, 2007) which described a study that carefully compared calcium intake to calcium output in healthy adults to determine the point of neutral calcium balance. The author of the letter questioned our use of a “balance”-based approach to estimate the calcium requirements for American adults aged 19-75 years. The author also indicated that a large body of literature demonstrates substantial calcium-related health benefits produced by higher intakes than those needed to assure neutral balance. In our reply we asserted that our calcium balance-based approach to estimating the calcium requirement expands and refines the approach used by the Food and Nutrition Board in their final report. We also indicated that our data also show a slow but inexorable increase in positive calcium balance with increasing calcium intake above the point of neutral balance. We suggested a re-evaluation of the rationale for advocating calcium intakes higher than those needed to assure balance because there is mounting evidence that calcium supplementation may be detrimental to bone and kidney health, and that there is clear indication that menopausal bone loss cannot be substantially influenced by diet.