Association between calcium supplementation and bone mineral density in children: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Article Category: Original article
Published Online: Aug 18, 2021
Page range: 169 - 176
Received: Jul 14, 2020
Accepted: Aug 17, 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/fon-2021-0019
Keywords
© 2021 Jin-Ping Gao et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Objective
To evaluate the effects of calcium supplementation on bone mineral density in children.
Methods
The PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane library were systematically searched. The retrieve inception date was between October 2001 and October 2019. Two reviewers independently performed the data extraction and assessed methodology quality. Studies were limited to randomized clinical trials comparing calcium supplement with a placebo for bone mineral density in children. A meta-analysis was performed to calculate standard mean difference (SMD) and 95% confidence interval (CI).
Results
A total of 6 randomized controlled trials involving 408 participants (calcium supplementation group: 198; placebo group: 210) were finally included in this study. The meta-analysis revealed that, compared with placebos, calcium supplementation had no effect on the bone mineral densities [the whole-body: SMD with CI = 0.43 (−0.05–0.91),
Conclusions
The results of this meta-analysis suggested that calcium supplementation did not improve bone mineral density in children. However, there continues to be a need for more high-quality studies to verify this fact in the future.