Study: Vitamin D supplementation decreases fall risk in homebound elderly

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center recently set out to evaluate the feasibility of delivering a vitamin D supplement through a Meals-on-Wheels program to improve the clients’ vitamin D levels and reduce falls.

 

“Falls in homebound older people often lead to disability and placement in a nursing home,” said Denise Houston, associate professor of gerontology and geriatric medicine at Wake Forest Baptist and lead author of the study. “One or our aging center’s goals is to help people maintain their independence and live safely at home for as long as possible.”

 

Participants in the Meals-on-Wheels program in Forsyth County, N.C., were recruited to take part in a five-month, single-blind randomized trial. A total of 68 study participants received either a monthly vitamin D supplement of 100,000 international units or placebo delivered with their MOW meal. The study included the participants’ history of falls and their fear of falling, blood tests at the beginning and at end of the trial to measure 25-hydroxyvitamin D (biomarker for vitamin D in blood), and a monthly diary recording falls during the trial period.

 

At the beginning of this pilot study, the research team found that more than half of the participants had insufficient concentrations of vitamin D in the blood (less than 20 ng/ml), while less than a quarter had concentrations in the optimal range (30 ng/ml or more).

 

The study showed that the monthly vitamin D supplement was effective in increasing the concentrations of vitamin D in the blood from insufficient to sufficient levels in all but one of the 34 people who received it, and to optimal levels in all but five people. In addition, people in the vitamin D group reported approximately half the falls of those in the control group.

 

“Although these initial findings are encouraging, we need to confirm the results in a larger trial,” Houston said. The Wake Forest Baptist team currently is conducting a clinical trial to try to determine how vitamin D affects risk factors for falls such as balance and muscle strength and power.

 

The study is published in the early online edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

 

Funding for the study was provided by the Wake Forest Translational Science Institute and Center for Integrative Medicine and the Claude Pepper Older Americans Independence Center of Wake Forest Baptist.