SOMETIMES headlines demolish cherished notions at a stroke. A classic example appeared this week: “Calcium-rich cereals don’t boost bones”.

A review of research from the Cochrane Collaboration concluded that giving children foods fortified with calcium to help build up their bones may be a waste of time. Extra calcium neither produces significantly stronger bones nor reduces the chances of a child suffering a fracture, not even for one who doesn’t eat enough calcium in their diet.

This contradicts the conclusions of a government report in 1999 and is a big blow for those manufacturers who trumpet added calcium as a health benefit — often, it has to be said, in products that are of otherwise dubious dietary value. As for cereal- eating, it has always been the case that a well-shredded cereal box would provide adequate calcium intake, provided that you added milk to it.

The basic premise that the “bone bank” you build up as a child will stand you in good stead into adulthood and old age is sound. But the link between bones and calcium is not as straightforward as you might think. It is affected by a host of factors, including

the genes you inherited, your age, hormone and vitamin levels, exercise, smoking and even how many fizzy drinks you consume, as the phosphorous in these can replace calcium to the detriment of bone. But fortification of food should not be dismissed. The addition of iodine to salt spelt the end of the iodine-deficiency disease, or goitre, once so common in some parts of Britain that it was also known as Derbyshire Neck. Margarine was first fortified with v itamins A and D voluntarily in Britain in 1924; and by law from 1940. In our cloudy islands, where the sunshine that allows our skin to make vitamin D is rare in winter, fortification is credited with the virtual elimination of rickets. The addition of B vitamins, calcium and iron to white flour has been mandatory since 1956 and has consigned the skin disease pellagra to history.

It is sad that fortification is not seen much in developing countries. It mostly happens in the developed world where, in general, fortified foods are consumed by the better fed, where it may make little difference to health, despite the claims that we are all going to Hell in a nutritional handcart with our diets.

The benefits are not always as clear-cut, hence the dithering over folic acid fortification in the past five years. Evidence supporting the benefits of folic acid in food supplements in reducing neural-tube defects such as spina bifida is very strong, but evidence of its benefits in fortified food is much less so.

Where fortification might make the greatest difference is in supplementing those foods eaten by at-risk groups. Roll on protein-and-iron- fortified Rich Tea biscuits for the over-eighties.

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