MONDAY, Aug. 7, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- For women with preexisting cardiovascular (CV) disease or three or more coronary risk factors, daily supplementation with B vitamins and folic acid does not affect fracture risk or bone turnover, according to a study published online July 29 in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.
Katie L. Stone, Ph.D., from California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, and colleagues performed an ancillary study to the Women's Antioxidant and Folic Acid Cardiovascular Study involving women with preexisting CV disease or three or more coronary risk factors. The authors assessed whether a daily B vitamin intervention, including folic acid, vitamin B6, and vitamin B12, reduces non-spine fracture risk in 4,810 women. Two bone turnover markers were assessed in a substudy of 300 women (150 each in treatment group and controls) with paired plasma samples at randomization and follow-up 7.3 years later.
The researchers found that B vitamin supplementation had no significant effect on non-spine fracture risk (relative hazard, 1.08; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.88 to 1.34). No significant effect of B vitamins was seen on fracture risk in a nested case-cohort analysis among women with elevated plasma homocysteine levels, or low vitamin B12 or B6, or folate at baseline. Vitamin B treatment had no effect on the change in markers of bone turnover.
"We found no evidence that daily supplementation with B vitamins reduces fracture risk or rates of bone metabolism in middle aged and older women at high risk of CV disease," the authors write.
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