Beneficial Role of Calcium in Premenstrual Syndrome: A Systematic Review of Current Literature

Arman Arab; Nahid Rafie; Gholamreza Askari; Mina Taghiabadi

doi:10.4103/ijpvm.IJPVM_243_19

Beneficial Role of Calcium in Premenstrual Syndrome: A Systematic Review of Current Literature

Int J Prev Med. 2020 Sep 22:11:156. doi: 10.4103/ijpvm.IJPVM_243_19. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Arman Arab¹, Nahid Rafie², Gholamreza Askari¹, Mina Taghiabadi³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Community Nutrition, School of Nutrition and Food Science, Food Security Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
² Department of Clinical Nutrition, School of Nutrition and Food Science, Food Security Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
³ Department of Nursing and Operating Room, Faculty Member of Neyshabur University of Medical Sciences, Neyshabur University of Medical Sciences, Neyshabur, Iran.

Abstract

Since premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is one of the most common and debilitating disorders in women, risk factor modification is an urgent health priority. Therefore, this systematic review aimed to summarize and discuss the outcomes of observational and interventional studies in humans regarding the relationship between Calcium and PMS. PubMed, Scopus, ISI web of sciences and Google scholar were searched up to January 2019 to identify relevant studies. The Newcastle-Ottawa and Jadad scales were used for quality assessment. A total of 14 studies (8 interventional and 6 observational) met our inclusion criteria. Majority of the studies showed that not only serum calcium levels are lower in PMS subjects, but also calcium supplementation could significantly improve the incidence of PMS and its related symptoms. This systematic review suggests a beneficial role for calcium in PMS subjects. However, in order to draw a firm link between calcium and PMS, further dose-response clinical trials with larger sample size and better methodological design are warranted.

Keywords: Calcium; premenstrual syndrome; systematic review.

Publication types

Review