Calcium & Vitamin D fail to show fracture prevention effect in elderly

Combined calcium and vitamin D is the standard treatment for osteoporosis as well as a preventive measure, particularly in frail elderly people. But two new studies fail to show a fracture prevention effect for the popular dietary supplements in the elderly.

Elderly people who have osteoporosis have a high risk of bone fractures and those who previously had a fracture are at an increased risk of having another. Vitamin D and calcium, alone or in combination, are often recommended for the prevention of osteoporotic fractures.

Elderly people taking regular supplements of vitamin D and calcium to prevent secondary bone fractures is proved ineffective, concludes a randomised trial published online today by The Lancet.

In the study Adrian Grant (University of Aberdeen, UK) and colleagues recruited around 5 300 people aged 70 years or older who had suffered a fracture in the last 10 years from 21 hospitals across the UK. Participants were randomly assigned to take a daily supplement of vitamin D3, calcium, both, or a placebo and were followed-up for between 24 and 62 months. Overall, 698 participants had a new fracture. The incidence of fractures did not differ between the groups.
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NYSE seat sold for $2.6 million, on merger news

A membership seat on the New York Stock Exchange rose with a seat selling for $2.6 million on Friday, up $200,000 from the previous sale Thursday and its highest since July 10, 2002.

The market for a seat on the NYSE heated up since the exchange announced last week a plan to merge with electronic trading platform Archipelago Holdings and become a publicly traded company.

The highest price ever paid for a seat on the NYSE was $2.65 million, in August 1999.

The NYSE is a private association owned by its members. Membership is conferred by the 1,366 tradable seats.

The value of an exchange seat has more than doubled since touching a 9-year low of $975,000 in early January. The decline was driven by uncertainty over the NYSE’s business prospects amid the increasing popularity of electronic trading.
But prices then began to recover, spurred in part by hopes that the NYSE would turn itself into a for-profit company.
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Obesity and overweight risks dementia in old age

Obesity and overweight are epidemic in the US and Europe with the highest prevalence among adults fifty and older. The prevention of overweight and obesity, even in old age, might help to prevent dementia, the fastest growing disease of late life.

Fat people with a body mass index of at least 30 have a 74 per cent increased risk of developing degenerative brain diseases including Alzheimer’s later in life, researchers have found. Among the overweight with a body-mass index over 25 the risk of dementia is increased by 35 per cent.

The study is the first to demonstrate a link between fatness and dementia. Researchers in California studied 10,276 people aged 40 to 45 in the late 1960s and early 1970s and followed them up until 1994. One in 10 was obese and one in three was overweight. They were all members of the Kaiser Permanente health maintenance plan, one of the best-known health insurance programmes in the United States whose operation has been compared with the National Health Service.

At ICAD, Miia Kivipelto, M.D., Ph.D., of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, and collaborators in Sweden and Finland presented data from a group of nearly 1,500 elderly subjects, followed for an average of 21 years. The researchers found that study participants who were obese in middle age – for example, weighing more than 197 pounds at a height of 5 feet, 8 inches – were twice as likely to develop dementia later in life. For those subjects who also had high cholesterol and hypertension in middle age, the risk of dementia was multiplied six times. (more…)

Iraq Cabinet approved despite division over posts

Lawmakers in Iraq have approved a new government by a large majority despite failure to agree on several top posts. As soon as the assembly approved, however, leaders of the Sunni Arab community issued complaints about how the new government had been chosen. The new government must resolve issues between the groups, before winning approval for a permanent constitution.

The Cabinet was approved by 180 lawmakers out of the 185 present in the 275-member parliament, Speaker Hajim Hassani announced to applause.

The government`s formation has been held up for months, partly over how to draw in the Sunni minority. Among the names on the new list is Shia politician Ahmed Chalabi, a one-time US favorite who fell from grace. Seven posts were left vacant, including oil and defense, but Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari promised that they would be filled very soon.

A majority of positions in the new Cabinet will be controlled by Shiite Muslims, a historic shift of power to Iraq’s majority sect after decades of domination by Sunni Arabs under the regime of Saddam Hussein.
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