Giving elderly people regular vitamin D3 and calcium supplements to prevent secondary bone fractures is ineffective, concluded researchers of a randomized clinical trial published in the April 28 early online edition of The Lancet.
Elderly people who have osteoporosis have a high risk of experiencing bone fractures, and those who previously had a fracture are at an increased risk of having a secondary fracture. Vitamin D and calcium, alone or in combination, often are recommended for the prevention of osteoporotic fractures.
Adrian Grant, D.M., University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and colleagues recruited 5,292 people aged 70 years or older who had experienced a fracture in the past 10 years from 21 hospitals across the United Kingdom. They randomly assigned the subjects to take a daily supplement of vitamin D3, calcium, both or a placebo. Researchers followed up the subjects for between 24 and 62 months. Overall, 698 subjects (13.2 percent) had a new fracture. The incident of fractures did not differ among the supplement groups.
"Our trial indicates that routine supplementation with calcium and vitamin D3, either alone or in combination, is not effective in the prevention of further fractures in people who had recent low-trauma fracture," said Dr. Grant.
"Policies for secondary prevention should, therefore, consider other strategies," he continued. "The main pharmacological intervention is antiresorptive drugs, such as bisphosphonates, which have rarely been assessed in patients who have not been taking calcium or vitamin D."
