Bone mass decreases along with aging, especially for women after menopause because of lower estrogen secretion together with low calcium intake. This study was conducted to study the effect of eggshell calcium supplementation on bone mass in 54 postmenopausal Vietnamese women living in a farming area about 60 km from Hanoi, Vietnam. Sets of 3 subjects matched by age, bone mass, BMI and calcium intake were divided randomly into 3 groups with 18 subjects in each group. The eggshell calcium group was administered 300 mg/d calcium from eggshell, the calcium carbonate group 300 mg/d calcium from calcium carbonate and the placebo group received no calcium supplementation. Bone mass (Speed of Sound (SOS)) was measured at the beginning (the baseline), the middle (6th month) and the end of the study (12th month) by the single blind method. SOS of the eggshell group increased significantly at 12 mo (p<0.05) and was significantly higher than that of the placebo and calcium carbonate groups at 12 mo (p<0.05). The SOS of the calcium carbonate group tended to be higher than that of the placebo group but without a significant difference (p>0.05). In conclusion, eggshell calcium was more effective in increasing bone mass than calcium carbonate in postmenopausal Vietnamese women.
Keywords: Vietnamese; bone mass; calcium carbonate; eggshell calcium; postmenopausal women.