Objective: To evaluate a food frequency questionnaire assessing calcium intake in women. Design: Estimates of calcium intake from the food frequency questionnaire were compared with those from 14 day records from 206 Caucasian women aged 25 -75 y in Siena, Italy. Subjects: Subjects were randomly recruited from the residents list of the city of Siena, Italy. Of the 250 initially recruited, 39 did not meet the inclusion criteria or failed to complete the diet record and five outliers were excluded before the statistical analysis on the basis that their diet record was unlikely to represent habitual intake. Results: Mean dietary calcium intakes were 829 AE 255 (s.d.) mg=day from the questionnaire and 818 AE 260 (s.d.) mg=day from the diet record. The mean difference in intake by the two methods (711.3 AE 116.4 mg=day) did not differ significantly from zero. Specificity in classifying women consuming less than 800 mg=day calcium was 86.6%, and sensibility in classifying women consuming more than 800 mg=day calcium was 89.4%. Conclusions: The food frequency questionnaire could be used in epidemiological studies to assess calcium intake in young to elderly women. The specificity in identifying low calcium intake subjects makes it useful also as an educational tool in diet counselling and for prescribing calcium supplementation.

No abstract

This study aimed to explore how possible it would be to reduce the length of a food-frequency questionnaire (FFQ) while maintaining adequate accuracy. This FFQ was validated in women in a previous study by our group, whereas the validation in men was one of the aims of the present study. A 15-item FFQ was administered to 136 men and 211 women (age range 25-75 years) recruited by proportional age-stratified sampling, who agreed to fill in a 14-day diet diary. For the intermediate version of the FFQ we considered only eight items in women and 10 in men. For the very short version we considered only three items. The positive likelihood ratio was markedly lower for the very short version (men = 1.2 and women = 1.5) with respect to the intermediate version (men = 6 and women = 6.3) and the 15-item version (men = 19.6 and women = 19.9). The specificity of the very short version was low (22.2% for men and 35.2% for women). The area under ROC curve of the three-item FFQ was significantly lower with respect to the other two versions. In conclusion, our study suggests that the shortest version of the FFQ could be usefully employed only in those clinical settings where the main objective is the identification of individuals who do not have a low calcium intake. ROC analysis and posttest probability calculated by positive likelihood ratio may represent an optimal method for assessing the accuracy of FFQs.

Our study demonstrates that treatment with rhGH increases bone turnover in postmenopausal osteoporotic women. Combined treatment with rhGH and CT over a period of 24 months is able to maintain bone mass at lumbar spine and distal radius, but induces a decline at femoral shaft; therefore, it does not seem particularly useful in the therapy of post-menopausal osteoporosis.

No abstract