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. 2012 Oct 17:345:e6390.
doi: 10.1136/bmj.e6390.

Calcium intake and risk of primary hyperparathyroidism in women: prospective cohort study

Julie M Paik  1 , Gary C Curhan, Eric N Taylor
Affiliations

Calcium intake and risk of primary hyperparathyroidism in women: prospective cohort study

Julie M Paik et al. BMJ. .

Abstract

Objective: To examine the association between calcium intake and risk of primary hyperparathyroidism in women.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Setting: Nurses' Health Study I, which originally recruited participants from the 11 most populous states in the United States.

Participants: 58,354 female registered nurses enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study I aged 39-66 years in 1986 and with no history of primary hyperparathyroidism. Calcium intake was assessed every four years using semiquantitative questionnaires on food frequency.

Main outcome measure: Incident primary hyperparathyroidism, confirmed by medical record review.

Results: During 22 years of follow-up, we recorded 277 incident cases of primary hyperparathyroidism. Women were divided into five equal groups, according to intake of dietary calcium. After adjusting for age, body mass index, race, and other factors, the relative risk of primary hyperparathyroidism for women in the group with the highest intake of dietary calcium was 0.56 (95% confidence interval 0.37 to 0.86, P=0.009 for trend), compared with the group with the lowest intake. The multivariable relative risk of primary hyperparathyroidism for women taking more than 500 mg/day of calcium supplements compared with no calcium supplements was 0.41 (95% confidence interval 0.29 to 0.60, P<0.001 for trend). Analyses restricted to participants with regular physical exams did not significantly change the association between calcium intake and risk of primary hyperparathyroidism.

Conclusion: Increased calcium intake is independently associated with a reduced risk of primary hyperparathyroidism in women.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: All authors have completed the Unified Competing Interest form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: support from the US National Institutes of Health; no financial relationships with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous 3 years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

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