• The association between serum calcium and phosphorus levels with gallstone disease in women: A case-control study
  • Moloud Ghorbani,1,*
    1. Department of Community Nutrition, Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz. Iran


  • Introduction: Gallstone disease (GD) is a common health problem associated with the gastrointestinal tract. Some studies have investigated calcium and serum phosphorus levels in GD patients but the results are inconsistent. Therefore, this study was performed to define the association between serum calcium and phosphorus levels with GD risk among Iranian female patients.
  • Methods: This case-control study was performed among women including 75 patients with GD and 75 healthy controls in the Research Institute for Gastroenterology and Liver Diseases of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Science in Tehran, Iran from October 2020 to March 2021. To measure serum calcium and phosphorus levels, blood samples were collected from all participants after 12 hours of fasting. To find the relationship between serum calcium and phosphorus levels and gallstone disease, multivariate logistic regression was used. This study was approved by the Ethical Committee of the Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran (research ethics number: IR.TBZMED.REC.1398.1202).
  • Results: The results of the analysis showed an inverse significant association between serum phosphorus level (OR: 0.16; 95% CI: 0.03–0.78, p = 0.024) with GD; as well serum calcium (p = 0.023) and phosphorus (p = 0.020) levels were significantly higher in healthy subjects. No significant association was observed between serum calcium level and GD.
  • Conclusion: Present results suggested that higher serum phosphorus level was inversely associated with the risk of GD. To support these findings more studies are required.
  • Keywords: Gallstone disease, Serum calcium, serum phosphorus