Calcium, vitamin D, or combined supplements offer little to no clinically meaningful benefit on fracture and fall prevention in most older people, finds an in-depth review of 69 randomised controlled trials involving 153,902 adults
Calcium, vitamin D, or combined supplements offer little to no clinically meaningful benefit on fracture and fall prevention in most older people, finds an in-depth review of 69 randomised controlled trials involving 153,902 adults
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>To address this uncertainty, researchers in Canada reviewed the results of 69 randomised controlled trials involving 153,902 adults that assessed the effect of calcium or vitamin D supplements – or a combination of both – on reducing the number of fractures and falls compared with placebo or no treatment.
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>The trials were of varying quality, but the researchers were able to assess their risk of bias and certainty of evidence using established tools.
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>After agreeing on clinically meaningful thresholds, the researchers found little to no effect for experiencing any fracture from use of calcium supplements (moderate certainty evidence from 11 trials; 9,067 participants), vitamin D supplements (high certainty evidence from 36 trials; 92,045 participants), or combined supplementation (high certainty evidence from 15 trials; 51,126 participants).
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>Calcium, vitamin D, or combined supplementation also appeared to have little to no effect on specific fractures, such as hip fractures, or falls, based largely on moderate to high certainty of evidence.
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>The researchers acknowledge that some analyses included a small number of trials and participants, so these findings should be interpreted with caution, and results may not apply to individuals with specific bone disorders or to those receiving drug treatment for osteoporosis.
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>However, the findings were consistent after further analyses to account for differences such as participant age, sex, history of fractures and falls, and average dietary calcium intake, supporting the strength of their conclusions.
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[Calcium, vitamin D, or combined supplementation to prevent fractures and falls: systematic review and meta-analysis | The BMJ](https://www.bmj.com/content/393/bmj-2025-088050)
Falls? I don’t know a lot about geriatrics but was there a hypothesis that falls were caused by bones shattering while walking? I always assumed it was the other way around. Was it pain?
Well my doc said it stops the progression of osteoporosis and but not enhance or revert the issue.
Did they separate out different levels of fall? Did they compare the falls to younger people with stronger bones and see if the injury’s compare to those older people who do and don’t take Calcium. The article doesn’t say if they took into account the level of injury vs the injury occurring. A small fracture to a rib vs a full break.
What about collagen, vitamin K, and exercise? By itself, I can believe D and calcium supplementation isn’t enough to help those already suffering from brittle bones, but this review leaves out too much.
Isn’t that because they lack the necessary resistance training?
Vitamin D and calcium are good, but if you do not make use of your body, it’s basically going down the drain.
Vitamin D in association studies (ie bloodwork in people who aren’t supplementing vitamin D) is associated with good bone health because it’s a biomarker for sun exposure. The sun helps build our bones through powerful infrared light that penetrates the skin and as a zeitgeber that allows the bones to execute repair processes at night.
For awhile people thought that vitamin D was a panacea of health because of all the good health effects its levels seem to be associated with in population level studies. The more work that comes out, the more clear it is that vitamin D is a biomarker for sun exposure(and a hormone that causes a cascade of changes that are beneficial after sun exposure), not a pill that can replace sun exposure.
Hows supplements gonna prevent falls? I don’t think anyone thought this?
Gotta have vitamin k2 mk7 in there