Vitamin D helps reduce the risk of falls in older women who live in sunny climates, according to a study published in the Jan. 14 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. The one-year study included 302 women, ages 70 to 90, with low blood vitamin D concentrations and a history of falls in the previous year.
The participants received either vitamin D (1,000 International Units daily) or a placebo. All participants also received 1,000 mg of calcium daily. Fifty-three percent of women in the vitamin D group had at least one fall, compared to 62.9 percent of the placebo group, which translated into a reduced risk of 19 percent in the vitamin D group. The study indicates that even in sunny places, where vitamin D is synthesized naturally from exposure to sunlight, vitamin D supplementation can contribute to preventing falls, which in turn reduces the chance of suffering a hip fracture or other fall-related injury.
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