Vitamin D and Calcium, Essay Example

The topic I selected for examination in this assignment is “Vitamin D and Calcium: A Systematic Review of Health Outcomes”, which can be found at the following URL: http://www.effectivehealthcare.ahrq.gov/search-for-guides-reviews-and-reports/?pageaction=displayproduct&productID=1953. Currently, healthcare professionals have an understanding that taking calcium along with vitamin D will increase the absorption of the vitamin. This report aims to determine if this relationship is true. Furthermore, it focuses on identifying the health outcomes of patients who have cancer, bone disease, and other illnesses, that take the vitamin combination compared to those who do not. A second aim of this study is to identify vitamin D assay methods that are typically used in experimental studies to determine whether they can effectively detect the concentrations of the chemical in serum.

To complete this study, the authors conducted a literature review of all relevant studies that attempted to identify the relationship between combination calcium and vitamin D consumption and several variables related to health, including its impact on mortality, pregnancy, and blood concentration levels. Systematic reviews that achieved these standards were also included. This review yielded use of 154 primary journal articles, in addition to two systematic reviews, which covered an additional 93 primary articles. Since the search terms used were very broad, the authors decided to use articles that discussed a wide variety of biological assays and disorders that could potentially benefit from calcium and vitamin D combination use.

An important finding of this study is that a beneficial link between combination vitamin use for a variety of diseases was not found. Therefore, it is possible that doctors erroneously recommend these vitamins to their patients in order to enhance their health. It is also important to consider, however, that the search terms used by the authors were very broad, and the relationship they identified may not be true for all illnesses examined. It would be beneficial for the authors to begin a new study based on these results that focuses on one relationship or one disease that has been treated in part with combination vitamin use. This will allow the authors to gain more data for each relationship, which will provide more convincing positive or negative results.

The authors also observed that clear dose-response relationships were not observed for any of the illnesses that were examined. Therefore, if vitamin d and calcium combination vitamins do provide a health advantage, it is possible that lower doses could be used. However, we must consider that the study should be repeated using age, gender, and other demographic stratification in order to be sure that there is really no dose-response relationship for these patients. It is difficult to prove that this is or is not the case in an unfocused review.

The primary mission of the AHRQ is to make healthcare safer. While this research paper is not particularly effective, it helps achieve this goal because it allows other researchers to gain a greater understanding of the gaps that currently exist in our knowledge of healthcare. It is beneficial to post papers with even unclear findings, because it will allow other researchers to focus on specific parts of the paper for clarity. Furthermore, publishing these negative results were important as well because it allows other researchers to understand what didn’t work and will prevent them from needing to repeat a failed experiment.