NIH Awards Creighton $1.13 Million Grant to Study Co-dependence of Calcium and Phosphorus on Bone Health

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded Creighton University Medical Center a $1.13 million grant to study the co-dependence of calcium and phosphorus on bone health. The NIH grant will be used for human clinical trials to investigate the effect of calcium and phosphorus supplementation in osteoporosis sufferers who receive bone building therapy. The study, Bone-Sparing by Calcium Salts With and Without Extra Phosphorus, will be conducted by Robert P. Heaney, MD., an internationally recognized expert in the field of bone biology and calcium nutrition, over the next four years. Dr. Heaney is John A. Creighton University Professor at Creighton University Medical Center and a principal scientist at Creighton¹s Osteoporosis Research Center.

The NIH grant follows recent research by Dr. Heaney that indicates osteoporosis can be addressed more effectively by taking nutritional supplements containing both calcium and phosphorus, rather than calcium alone. Other research studies suggests that the safest way for osteoporosis patients to meet their needs for both calcium and phosphorus is to use a source that provides both nutrients, such as dairy products and/or a calcium phosphate supplement. Other data indicate that there may be a phosphorus deficiency among the population most prone to osteoporosis that is often overlooked.

³The NIH grant will enable us to conduct definitive research that will determine differences between calcium supplementation with and without phosphorus,² said Dr. Heaney.

Calcium phosphates have been widely used in pharmaceutical products for many years because of their excipient properties. (Excipients are necessary inactive ingredients in a formulation for making tablets.). As a result of the NIH grant and other research, the nutritional value of calcium phosphates in dietary supplements may become more widely recognized and more widely used.

Creighton is an independent, comprehensive university operated by the Jesuits. Creighton has been ranked at or near the top of Midwestern universities in the U.S. News & World Report magazine¹s ³America¹s Best Colleges² edition for more than a decade.