Women religious gather to mark 40th anniversary of Omaha bone study

Published: 2007-05-02

OMAHA, Neb. (CNS) -- By the end of the first eight-day session of the Omaha Nun Study in 1967, Sister Rosalina Wilkinson was sick of chocolate bars. The Sister of Mercy had eaten one chocolate bar each day. "I only picked the chocolate bar because it was on the list they gave me and I thought it sounded good," Sister Wilkinson told the Catholic Voice, newspaper of the Omaha Archdiocese. "Boy was that a mistake." Sister Wilkinson was one of 190 nuns from six motherhouses who agreed to participate in a Creighton University study on calcium intake and women's bone health, now known simply as the Omaha Nun Study. Participating nuns were from the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration, Servants of Mary, School Sisters of St. Francis, Notre Dame Sisters, Sisters of Mercy and Benedictine Sisters. More than 30 of the nuns involved in the study were on hand April 25 to help celebrate the study's 40th anniversary. "I would like to reiterate the impact you had," Dr. Robert Heaney, study director and designer, told the nuns. "I don't think you realize this, but the intake recommendations for calcium were based on the figures you people provided not to me, not to Creighton, but to the women of America."

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