Effects of oral alendronate and intranasal salmon calcitonin on bone mass and biochemical markers of bone turnover in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Calcitonin in the context of osteoporosis and bone density in this randomized controlled trial publication.

The main objective of this study was to determine the effect of daily oral alendronate treatment on bone mass in postmenopausal women affected by osteoporosis.

Why It Was Studied

Nine centers in Italy enrolled 286 postmenopausal women between the ages of 48 and 76 with spinal bone mineral density > or = 2 SD below adult mean peak in the two-year, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial.

Who Took Part

The study group was 286 women.

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults and older adults, women only.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind, open-label and placebo-controlled study.

Because people in this Calcitonin study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

As a double-blind Calcitonin study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

Everyone knew when Calcitonin was being given (open label), which is simpler to run but leaves more room for expectations to affect what is reported.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Calcitonin group a baseline to be compared against.

The methods mention a period of two years.

Bone mass was measured by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry every six months for two years.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Absorptiometry, Photon, Analysis of Variance, Biomarkers, Bone Density, Bone and Bones, Calcitonin and Calcium, Dietary.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and open-label study of Calcitonin in 286 women in people with osteoporosis and bone density over two years.

The publication is from 1995 (Bone), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Calcitonin compound page, Osteoporosis and bone density research.