http://www.healthsentinel.com/news.php?event=news_print_list_item&id=662
"Supplements Cut Post-Stroke Hip Fracture Risk", Reuters, March 1,
2005,
Link:
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=7777347
Dietary supplements of folate and vitamin B12 can reduce the risk of
hip fracture in elderly patients following a stroke, according to a new
Japanese study.
The risk of hip fracture is significantly higher in stroke patients
than in other individuals of the same age, and is thought to be
associated with increased blood levels of a substance called
homocysteine, Dr. Yoshihiro Sato and others note in this week's Journal
of the American Medical Association.
Because folate and mecobalamin (vitamin B12) reduce homocysteine
levels, the team thought that supplements of these nutrients could
reduce fracture risk.
Sato, at Mitate Hospital in Tagawa, and colleagues studied 628 patients
aged 65 years or more who had residual paralysis on one side of the
body a year or more after having a stroke. The participants were
randomly assigned to take folate and mecobalamin daily, or inactive
placebos.
During 2 years of follow-up, the number of falls in each group was
virtually the same, but there were only six hip fractures in the
supplement group compared with 27 in the placebo group.
Even though homocysteine levels dropped in the active treatment group
and rose in the placebo group, bone mineral density did not differ
significantly between groups -- so that didn't explain the fewer number
of fractures.
As two editorialists point out, although the results support a link
between homocysteine levels and fracture risk, "final proof of
causality will have to come from elucidation of the biological
mechanism underlying this relationship."
Also, Sato's group cautions that while they found folate and
mecobalamin treatment to be associated with striking decreases in
fracture risk, "generalization to broader non-Japanese populations
should be performed with caution."
SOURCE: Journal of the American Medical Association, March 2, 2005.