Vietnamese people's diet only meets 50% of calcium needs.

On December 23 in Hanoi, the Institute of Medical and Sociological Research organized a scientific workshop on "Nutritional solutions to prevent osteoporosis in the community".

Speaking at the opening of the workshop, Dr. Nguyen Truong Nam, Director of the Institute of Medical and Social Research, said that osteoporosis is one of the most common diseases worldwide and is a serious health problem, especially for women. According to statistics from the World Health Organization, every year there are more than 50 million cases of bone fractures related to osteoporosis and osteoporosis costs the world over 600 billion dollars/year.

Scientific workshop "Nutritional solutions to prevent osteoporosis in the community" held on December 23 in Hanoi.

In Vietnam, osteoporosis, although occurring silently, also causes many serious consequences for individuals, families and society. The rate of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women is about 25% and the rate of bone density loss is also at 50%. Therefore, assessing the situation, summarizing experiences in the world and thereby contributing to recommending intervention solutions for the community is a necessary task for medical experts, nutritionists and experts in the field of sociology.

This workshop aims to share and discuss scientific information with experts and the community, contributing to more clearly identifying specific intervention solutions that bring practical effects in the field of osteoporosis prevention in Vietnam.

At the workshop, Associate Professor, Dr. Le Thi Bach Mai, Deputy Director of the National Institute of Nutrition, said: Currently, the Vietnamese diet generally only meets 50% of the body's calcium needs. Calcium and vitamin D nutrition in the Vietnamese diet is greatly affected by unreasonable eating habits, in which the use of high biological value calcium sources in milk is limited. This is also the reason why the rate of stunted children in our country is still high.

“The cause of calcium deficiency is poor calcium absorption due to insufficient Vitamin D, the body loses too much calcium through urine due to unhealthy eating habits. Many people consume a lot of carbonated soft drinks, a lot of animal protein and do not increase calcium. In addition, they eat too salty and the food source does not have much calcium. All three factors mentioned above are the cause of calcium deficiency in the body. Being short and underweight is not a genetic trait of Vietnamese people. If we improve the current calcium-poor diet, the stature of Vietnamese people will improve” – Associate Professor, Dr. Le Thi Bach Mai emphasized.

The report on “Nutritional intervention solutions to prevent osteoporosis in the world and in Vietnam” presented by Dr. Truong Hong Son from the Center for Nutrition and Health (Institute of Medical and Social Research) at the Workshop showed that osteoporosis and bone density loss are very common conditions in the world and Vietnam, especially in women over 50 years old. Osteoporosis causes many serious consequences affecting the quality of life. The cause of osteoporosis is due to physiological changes in humans, and there are also causes from a diet lacking in calcium and micronutrients. Research results over many years around the world show that calcium supplementation in the diet is one of the effective and safe solutions in reducing osteoporosis.

Also at the conference, a representative of the Vietnam Medical Association said that stem cell experts in our country need to research the cause of stem cell failure causing osteoporosis in the body, which scientists around the world have just discovered./.

According to Dangcongsan