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The GW Hatchet

AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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GW Doc eases women’s concerns on calcium intake

Aging women may be more confident taking vitamin and element supplements after a GW doctor completed a comprehensive seven-year study.

Women have been commonly advised to ensure they get enough calcium and vitamin D as they age, but there have also been warnings over negative cardiovascular side effects.

As part of a study with more than 160,000 participants, Judith Hsia tried to tackle concerns about negative health effects of supplement vitamins and minerals.

“It doesn’t get any bigger than this,” said Hsia about the size of the research pool. Hsia is a cardiologist at GW Hospital who is the principal investigator for the Women’s Health Initiative, a 15-year national health study researching disease prevention in postmenopausal women.

The work is unique, as it is the largest and longest lasting study ever to be conducted concerning the effects of calcium supplementation on the heart and bones. Focusing on a subgroup of 36,282 of 161,000 WHI participants aged 50 to 79, the study sought to determine if calcium increased or decreased cardiovascular problems.

In past studies, calcium had been found to lower blood pressure and help women maintain weight control, thus decreasing risk factors of heart disease. On the other hand, it was also well known that calcium build-up in the coronary arteries, called calcification, could lead to heart disease.

In Hsia’s study, which spanned seven years, half the subgroup was assigned to take 500 mg of calcium carbonate along with vitamin D, and the other half was assigned a placebo. The results of the study affirmed that women who took more calcium and vitamin D supplements did not increase their risk for heart disease or strokes. However, the study did not prove that calcium supplementation decreased the risk of heart disease either.

“The results of the study should be reassuring to women because there was no evidence to support that calcium and vitamin D supplements would increase risk of heart disease,” Hsia said.

The American Heart Association, which published the results of Hsia’s calcium and vitamin D trial in February 2007 in its journal, “Circulation,” said that the study did not have the last say on the issue of supplements.

Laura McGinnis, a representative for the American Heart Association said that the study “opens an important dialogue” on women’s cardiovascular health.

“Women approaching or undergoing menopause are encouraged to take calcium supplements to reduce their risk for osteoporosis … On its own, this study is not enough for the American Heart Association to change its guidelines regarding heart disease in women,” she said.

Hsia explained that women should not stop taking these supplements, however, as the benefits include lowering blood pressure and increasing bone density. However, Hsia warned, women cannot expect supplements to act as substitutes for healthy lifestyles. Instead she insists that the best way to protect the heart and bones is through eating a diet low in saturated fat, not smoking, getting cholesterol checked and keeping blood pressure under control.

She emphasizes that women should begin monitoring their health as early as possible. “You can even acquire good habits starting in college … at age 21 everyone should know their cholesterol profile,” she said.

Hsia, who received her doctor of medicine degree from the University of Illinois, completed her internship at Tufts-New England Medical Center. She came to GW to complete a fellowship in 1984, is board certified in Cardiovascular Disease and Internal Medicine and has been a professor in the GW Medical Center since 1986. Today, while she practices cardiology, Hsia stays involved with the WHI and research concerning women’s health.

According to its mission statement, WHI is “one of the most definitive, far reaching programs of research on women’s health in the U.S.” with 40 clinical centers at universities across the country including GW, Stanford, Northwestern, Brown and Emory.

Other WHI research in which Hsia has been involved includes an estrogen and progestin trial. It found that women who took a particular combination of estrogen and progestin suffered from more heart attacks, strokes, blood clots and breast cancer than those who took a placebo.

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