Vitamin D ‘helps to prevent falls among elderly’

GIVING the elderly vitamin D tablets with their meals-on-wheels helped to prevent serious falls, research shows.

Housebound patients who received daily supplements with their hot dinners were half as likely to fall over. Experts think the tablets strengthen the bones and muscles and also boost the immune system, meaning the elderly are overall less frail.

Almost a third of the over-65s and half of over-80s fall over at least once a year, according to NHS figures. Falls are the leading cause of death in the over-75s and cost the health service £2.3 million a year.

The main source of vitamin D is through a chemical reaction of sunlight on the skin and many elderly people are deficient because they spend little time outdoors.

Researchers at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre in North Carolina set up a programme whereby 68 elderly residents received vitamin D tablets or a placebo with their meals-on-wheels.

The study lasted five months and researchers kept diaries of each patient to record how often they fell over. They underwent blood tests at the start and end of the study to measure levels of vitamin D.

The findings, published in the Journal of the Geriatrics Society, show that half of the residents had insufficient concentrations beforehand. But by the end of the study, the vitamin D levels in 33 out of 34 patients receiving the genuine supplements were either normal or very good. Furthermore, they had suffered an average of half as many falls as the residents taking the placebos.

Researcher Dr Denise Houston said: ‘These initial findings are encouraging, but we need to confirm the results in a larger trial.’