Shop For Your Calcium Needs!

Your body needs calcium to build strong bones when you are young and to keep bones strong as you get older. Your body needs calcium to help build strong bones and prevent osteoporosis (bone loss). Everyone needs calcium, but it’s especially important for women and girls.

Girls ages 9 to 18 need 1,300 mg (milligrams) of calcium every day.
Women ages 19 to 50 need 1,000 mg of calcium every day.
Women over age 50 need 1,200 mg of calcium every day.
Calcium can help prevent osteoporosis (weak bones).
One in 2 women and 1 in 4 men over the age of 50 will break a bone because of osteoporosis (“os-tee-oh-puh-ROH-sis”). Some people don’t know they have osteoporosis until they break a bone.

Calcium helps to keep your bones strong and less likely to break.

Calcium: Shopping list

Take this list with you the next time you go food shopping. Keep these tips in mind for getting enough calcium:

Foods with at least 20% DV (daily value) of calcium are excellent choices. Check the nutrition label to see the % DV. Foods with less calcium will also help you meet your daily calcium goal.
Don’t forget vitamin D. Vitamin D helps your body use calcium. You can get vitamin D from salmon, tuna, and some foods with added vitamin D (like milk, breakfast cereals, and juice). Check the label.
Milk and Milk Products

Look for fat-free or low-fat milk products. (Lactose-reduced milk products are also good sources of calcium.)

Fat-free or low-fat yogurt
Fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk
Cheese (3 grams of fat or less per serving)
Fat-free or low-fat cottage cheese
Vegetables

These green vegetables can be a great way to get more calcium. If you buy them canned, look for choices that say “low sodium” or “no salt added”. If you buy frozen vegetables, choose ones without butter or cream sauces.

Spinach
Kale or turnip greens
Chinese cabbage
Broccoli
Foods with Added Calcium

These foods often have added calcium. Check the % DV of calcium on the label to be sure.

Breakfast cereal
Tofu made with calcium
Orange juice with calcium
Fat-free or low-fat soy-based drinks>Get a Bone Density Test

Healthfinder

Early Detection Of Osteoporosis Risk With Simple Ultrasound Exam Of Women's Heel.

OAK BROOK, Ill. – An ultrasound exam of the heel may be able to predict if a woman is at heightened risk for fractures due to osteoporosis, according to a new multicenter study being published in the July issue of the journal Radiology. Along with certain risk factors, including age or recent fall, radiation-free ultrasound of the heel may be used to better select women who need further bone density testing, such as a dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) exam.

"Osteoporosis is a major public health issue expected to increase in association with worldwide aging of the population," said the study's lead author Idris Guessous, M.D., senior research fellow in the Department of Internal Medicine at Lausanne University Hospital in Switzerland. "The incidence of osteoporosis will outpace economic resources, and the development of strategies to better identify women who need to be tested is crucial."

Osteoporosis is a disease that is characterized by low bone mass and the deterioration of bone tissue and is a major public health threat. According to the National Osteoporosis Foundation, 10 million Americans currently have osteoporosis and approximately 34 million more are estimated to have low bone mass, increasing their risk of developing the disease. Eighty percent of those affected are women.

"Patients with osteoporosis are not optimally treated because of a lack of general awareness," Dr. Guessous said. "A simple prediction rule might be a useful clinical tool for healthcare providers to optimize osteoporosis screening."

In the three-year multicenter study, 6,174 women age 70 to 85 with no previous formal diagnosis of osteoporosis were screened with heel-bone quantitative ultrasound (QUS), a diagnostic test used to assess bone density. QUS was used to calculate the stiffness index, which is an indicator of bone strength, at the heel. Researchers added in risk factors such as age, history of fractures or a recent fall to the results of the heel-bone ultrasound to develop a predictive rule to estimate the risk of fractures. The results showed that 1,464 women (23.7 percent) were considered lower risk and 4,710 (76.3 percent) were considered higher risk.

Study participants where mailed questionnaires every six months for up to 32 months to record any changes in medical conditions, including illness, changes in medications or any fracture. If a fracture had occurred, the patients were asked to specify the fracture's precise location and trauma level and to include a medical report from the physician in charge.

In the group of higher risk women, 290 (6.1 percent) developed fractures whereas only 27 (1.8 percent) of the women in the lower risk group developed fractures. Among the 66 women who developed a hip fracture, 60 (90 percent) were in the higher risk group.

The results show that heel QUS is not only effective at identifying high-risk patients who should receive further testing, but also may be helpful in identifying patients for whom further testing can be avoided.

"Heel QUS in conjunction with clinical risk factors can be used to identify a population at a very low fracture probability in which no further diagnostic evaluation may be necessary," Dr. Guessous said.

Contact: Linda Brooks
lbrooks@rsna.org
630-590-7762
Radiological Society of North America

Tags: osteoporosis, Medical Research, ultrasound exam, RSNA