Should older people in residential care receive vitamin D to prevent falls? Results of a randomized trial.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and multicenter study.

Because people in this Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

A placebo (an inactive look-alike) gave the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc group a baseline to be compared against.

Running at several centres spread the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc study over different clinics and patient groups.

Randomized, placebo-controlled double-blind, trial of 2 years' duration.

Multicenter study in 60 hostels (assisted living facilities) and 89 nursing homes across Australia.

Falls and fractures recorded prospectively in study diaries by care staff.

What Was Measured

The subject headings attached to it are Accidental Falls, Calcium Carbonate, Ergocalciferols, Fractures, Bone, Frail Elderly, Geriatric Assessment and Homes for the Aged.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 5 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2005 (Journal of the American Geriatrics Society), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc compound page, all human trials.