Vitamin D and calcium supplementation prevents severe falls in elderly community-dwelling women: a pragmatic population-based 3-year intervention study

Abstract

Background and aims: We evaluated the effect of two programs for the prevention of falls leading to acute hospital admission in a population of elderly community-dwelling Danish residents.

Methods: This was a factorial, pragmatic, intervention study. We included 9605 community-dwelling city residents aged 66+ years. We offered a prevention program consisting of a daily supplement of 1000 mg of elemental calcium as calcium carbonate and 400 IU (10 microg) of vitamin-D3 to a total of 4957 participants. The remaining 5063 participants were offered home safety inspection with dietary and health advice, or no intervention.

Results: The Calcium and Vitamin D program was followed by 50.3% and the Environmental and Health Program by 46.4%. According to a multivariate analysis including age, marital status and intervention program, female residents who followed the Calcium and Vitamin D Program had a 12% risk reduction in severe falls (RR 0.88; 95% CI 0.79-0.98; p < 0.05; NNT 9).

Conclusions: The present study supports the hypothesis that vitamin D and calcium supplementation prevent falls leading to acute hospitalization in community-dwelling elderly females in a northern European region known to be deficient in vitamin D.