Are osteoporosis guidelines influenced by “Big Calcium” and “Big Vitamin D”?

Osteoporotic bone. Are the mainstay treatments for osteoporosis prevention, calcium and vitamin D, truly useless?

Do osteoporosis guidelines overstate the benefits of calcium and vitamin D supplements? And is their continued presence due to vested interests and conflicts of interest? That’s the provocative argument made by Andrew Grey and Marc Bolland, two endocrinologists who recently detailed their analysis in The BMJ, in a paper entitled “Web of industry, advocacy, and academia in the management of osteoporosis” [PDF]. They introduce their case by noting:

For many years, recommendations for prevention and treatment of osteoporosis have included increasing calcium intake (by diet or supplements) and use of vitamin D supplements. Since the average dietary calcium intake in most countries is much less than that recommended by guidelines, many older people are advised to take calcium supplements to prevent osteoporosis. The recommendations have been implemented successfully: over half of older Americans take calcium and vitamin D supplements, either prescribed or over the counter, and bone health is the most common specific motivation for use of nutritional supplements. However, this behaviour does not reflect evidence that has emerged since 2002 that such supplements do not reduce the risk of fracture and may result in harm. Guideline bodies also continue to recommend calcium and vitamin D supplements. Here, we argue that change is made difficult by a complex web of interactions between industry, advocacy organisations, and academia.

Osteoporosis is a medical condition for which supplements have been considered an accepted part of conventional medicine for some time. Are conflicts of interest trumping good science? And are calcium and vitamin D supplements truly useless? Like many clinical questions, there is evidence to support a range of opinions, and it’s very difficult to state, with certainty, that one position is the correct one. Despite this, that’s the case that Grey and Bolland make in their analysis.

Choosing Wisely: Five things Pharmacists and Patients Should Question

Is the health care spending tide turning? Unnecessary medical investigations and overtreatment seems to have entered the public consciousness to an extent I can’t recall in the past. More and more, the merits of medical investigations such as mammograms and just this week, PSA tests are being being widely questioned. It’s about time. Previous attempts to critically appraise overall benefits and consequences of of medical technologies seem to have died out amidst cries of “rationing!”, particularly in the United States. But all health systems are struggling to manage unsustainable cost increases. But this time, the focus has changed – this isn’t strictly a cost issue, but a quality of care issue. It’s being championed by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation (ABIM) under the banner Choosing Wisely with the support of several medical organizations. The initiative is designed to promote a candid discussion between patient and physician: “Is this test or procedure necessary?”. Nine organizations are already participating, represent nearly 375,000 physicians. Each group developed its own list based on the following topic: Five Things Physicians and Patients Should Question. Here are the lists published to date:

• American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology
• American Academy of Family Physicians
• American College of Cardiology
• American College of Physicians
• American College of Radiology
• American Gastroenterological Association
• American Society of Clinical Oncology
• American Society of Nephrology
• American Society of Nuclear Cardiology

ABIM has partnered with Consumer Reports to prepare consumer-focused material as well, so patients can initiate these discussions with their physicians. How did this all come to be? A candid editorial from Howard Brody in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2010:

In my view, organized medicine must reverse its current approach to the political negotiations over health care reform. I would propose that each specialty society commit itself immediately to appointing a blue-ribbon study panel to report, as soon as possible, that specialty’s “Top Five” list. The panels should include members with special expertise in clinical epidemiology, biostatistics, health policy, and evidence-based appraisal. The Top Five list would consist of five diagnostic tests or treatments that are very commonly ordered by members of that specialty, that are among the most expensive services provided, and that have been shown by the currently available evidence not to provide any meaningful benefit to at least some major categories of patients for whom they are commonly ordered. In short, the Top Five list would be a prescription for how, within that specialty, the most money could be saved most quickly without depriving any patient of meaningful medical benefit.

Health care professionals are, in general, self-regulating professions. That is, governments entrust them to set the standards for their profession and regulate members, in the public interest. Consequently, attempts by payors of services (i.e., government and insurers) to guide medical practice are usually met with substantial resistance. No-one wants insurers interfering in the patient-physician relationship. That’s why it’s exciting to see this initiative in place: It’s being driven by the medical profession itself.

As a pharmacist I’m also a member of a self-regulating profession, one in which the public places a considerable degree of trust in. In order to maintain the public’s confidence, it is essential that the pharmacy profession maintain the highest professional and ethical standards, and do its part to reduce unnecessary testing and investigations. With this in mind, I’ve taken up Brody’s challenge and developed my own list of Five things Pharmacists and Patients Should Question. While eliminating them may not provide the most savings to patients, they are pharmacy-based, widely offered, and offer little to no benefit to consumers. Here are my top five candidates:

Your Urine is Not a Window to Your Body: pH Balancing – A Failed Hypothesis

One of my first encounters with “alternative” health was the “pH balance” idea. A customer approached me at the pharmacy counter and asked for “pH test strips.” I asked him about kidney stones, diabetes – the usual reasons you test your urine. He told me he was healthy, and he was just monitoring his body’s “acid balance” and that he kept his body “alkali” to be healthy.  “You can’t change your body’s pH, sir – if your pH changes, you’ll die,” I explained, in my most reassuring pharmacist voice. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snapped at me, “I adjust my pH all the time.” I handed over the urine testing strips, rang it into the cash register, and wondered, what is this guy talking about? Where did he get the idea he could manipulate his body’s acidity?