Trial reportJournal of the American Geriatrics Society2012
Calcium and vitamin D supplementation and cognitive impairment in the women's health initiative.
Trial report in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT00745056 (Women's Health Initiative Memory Study--Epidemiology of Cognitive Health Outcomes), which is not on this map. Cited by 76 papers, 13 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Women's Health Initiative Memory Study--Epidemiology of Cognitive Health Outcomes
Who cites it
76 citing papers in PubMed, 13 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 166 citations in OpenAlex.
- Diversity in United States Dementia Prevention Trials: An Updated Systematic Review of Eligibility Criteria and Recruitment Strategies.Dementia and geriatric cognitive disorders · 2025Pooled it
- Association of vitamin D with risk of dementiaFrontiers in neurology · 2025Pooled it
- Supplementation and Mitigating Cognitive Decline in Older Adults With or Without Mild Cognitive Impairment or Dementia: A Systematic Review.Nutrients · 2024Pooled it
- Vitamin Supplementation and Dementia: A Systematic Review.Nutrients · 2022Pooled it
- Impact of vitamin D on cognitive functions in healthy individuals: A systematic review in randomized controlled clinical trials.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Pooled it
- Vitamin D Supplementation and Cognition in Adults: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials.CNS drugs · 2021Pooled it
- Efficacy of Vitamins on Cognitive Function of Non-Demented People: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Nutrients · 2020Pooled it
- Role of Vitamin D in Preventing and Treating Selected Extraskeletal Diseases-An Umbrella Review.Nutrients · 2020Pooled it
- Vitamin and mineral supplementation for maintaining cognitive function in cognitively healthy people in mid and late life.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2018Pooled it
- Vitamin and mineral supplementation for preventing dementia or delaying cognitive decline in people with mild cognitive impairment.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2018Pooled it
- Vitamin D and cognitive function: A Mendelian randomisation study.Scientific reports · 2017Pooled it
- Individually modifiable risk factors to ameliorate cognitive aging: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Climacteric : the journal of the International Menopause Society · 2015Pooled it
- Vitamin D deficiency is associated with increased risk of Alzheimer's disease and dementia: evidence from meta-analysis.Nutrition journal · 2015Pooled it
- Effect of vitamin D on cognitive decline: results from two ancillary studies of the VITAL randomized trial.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
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- Three Doses of Vitamin D and Cognitive Outcomes in Older Women: A Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial.The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences · 2020Trial
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- Trial
- Nutritional intervention targeting muscle-brain axis in dementia continuum: from mechanisms to practice.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Review
- Calcium supplementation and the risk of dementia in the Perth Longitudinal Study of Aging Women: a post-hoc analysis of a randomised clinical trial for fracture prevention.The Lancet regional health. Western Pacific · 2025Article
16 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 9 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesTo examine the effects of vitamin D and calcium on cognitive outcomes in elderly women.
designPost hoc analysis of a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial.
settingForty Women's Health Initiative (WHI) clinical centers across the United States.
participantsFour thousand one hundred forty-three women aged 65 and older without probable dementia at baseline who participated in the WHI Calcium and Vitamin D Trial and the WHI Memory Study.
interventionTwo thousand thirty-four women were randomized to receive 1,000 mg of calcium carbonate combined with 400 IU of vitamin D(3) (treatment) and 2,109 to placebo. MEASUREMENTS: Primary: classifications of probable dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) based on a four-phase protocol that included central adjudication. Secondary: global cognitive function and individual cognitive subtests.
resultsMean age of participants was 71. During a mean follow-up of 7.8 years, 39 participants in the treatment group and 37 in the placebo group developed incident dementia (hazard ratio (HR) = 1.11, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.71-1.74, P = .64). Likewise, 98 treatment participants and 108 placebo participants developed incident MCI (HR = 0.95, 95% CI = 0.72-1.25, P = .72). There were no significant differences in incident dementia or MCI or in global or domain-specific cognitive function between groups.
conclusionThere was no association between treatment assignment and incident cognitive impairment. Further studies are needed to investigate the effects of vitamin D and calcium separately, on men, in other age and ethnic groups, and with other doses.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.