Details

Titel

Calcium Supplementation Found To Be Cost-Effective In Preventing Osteoporotic Hip Fractures

Ist Teil von

• PR Newswire, 1999, p.1

Ort / Verlag

New York: PR Newswire Association LLC

Erscheinungsjahr

1999

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Is the old adage, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, true for hip fractures? Would the savings in medical costs from preventing hip fractures outweigh the cost of calcium supplementation for Americans at risk? This is what Adrianne Bendich, Ph.D., Shelah Leader, Ph.D. and Pradip Muhuri, Ph.D., wanted to determine in their new study, "Supplemental Calcium for the Prevention of Hip Fracture: Potential Health-Economic Benefits." Drs. Bendich, Leader and Muhuri have concluded that 134,764 hip fractures and $2.6 billion of direct medical costs would have been avoided in 1995 if hip fracture patients age 50 or older had consumed about 1,200 mg/day of supplemental calcium for 34 months. They found that further health care savings could also be expected, because calcium supplementation can significantly reduce all non-vertebral fractures. The complete results of their study, which was underwritten by SmithKline Beecham, makers of TUMS(R), appear in the June 1999 issue of Clinical Therapeutics. Analyzing three published articles* based on double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials of the effects of calcium supplementation; data from the National Health and Nutrition Survey 1988-94 (NHANES III), the 1995 National Hospital Discharge Survey and the U.S. Bureau of the Census; proprietary market information on the cost of calcium supplements; and other primary and secondary sources, Drs. Bendich, Leader and Muhuri compared the projected savings in direct health care costs with the cost of supplements that provide the level of calcium associated with hip fracture reduction (1,200 mg/day of elemental calcium for 34 months).