Vitamin D Helps Elderly Women

Vitamin D Can Help Elderly

Women Survive, Study Suggests

Elderly women are more likely to be vitamin D deficient with a significant risk of falls and fractures. The key conclusion in a systematic review published in the "The Cochrane Library" recent edition... Supplementing vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) to elderly women (mainly in institutional care) seems to increase survival.

A Cochrane meta-analysis published a 2 years ago demonstrated evidence for Vitamin D being beneficial
for several health concerns, but it did not specifically focus on mortality.

"We were, however, aware that more trials had been published and wanted to assess the effects of vitamin D when you added all the data together," said researchers from the Department of Internal Medicine, Gastroenterology and Hepatology, at the University of Nis, in Serbia and also at The Cochrane Hepato-Biliary Group at The Copenhagen Trial Unit in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The international team of researchers identified 50 randomized trials that together had 94,148 participants. They had a mean age of 74 years, and 79% were women. "Our analyses suggest
that vitamin D3 reduces mortality by about 6%."

Interestingly, there were no significant benefits of taking other forms of vitamin D such as vitamin D2, and the active forms of the vitamin, alfacalcidol or calcitriol. However, the researchers explained that they could only find much less data relating to these types of vitamin D and so these conclusions should be interpreted with caution.

"We need to have more randomized trials that look specifically to see whether these forms of vitamin D do or don't have benefits," they said. Interestingly, the team did conclude that alfacalcidol and calcitriol significantly increased the risk of hypercalcaemia, and vitamin D3 combined with calcium significantly increased the risk of kidney stones.

"Previous reviews of preventive trials of vitamin D have not included as much information and have not examined the separate influence of different forms of vitamin D on mortality. By taking data from a larger number of trials we have been able to shed much more light on this important issue," they concluded.

Story Source:
Wiley-Blackwell (2011, July 6). "Vitamin D can help elderly women survive, review suggests"

This article is for informational and educational purposes only, and is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Consult with your doctor or healthcare professional for medical and nutrition advice.