Vitamin D does not prevent fractures

Giving vitamin D and calcium supplements to elderly patients who have osteoporosis does not prevent them breaking bones. People with osteoporosis, or brittle bone disease, have an increased risk of fractures, particularly if they have already broken a bone. Doctors often recommend supplements of vitamin D and calcium but recent research says that they don't work. The 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 a recent low-trauma fracture.Researchers from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland studied 5,300 elderly people who had fractured a bone during the previous 10 years. They were randomly divided into four groups, which were given supplements of vitamin D, calcium, both, or a placebo. After following the patients for up to 62 months, nearly 700 patients had broken a bone, but there was no difference in the number of fractures in the different groups. Drugs known as bisphosphonates, which maintain bone density, could be a better alternative, they added.

Osteoporosis causes the bones to become thinner and more likely to break. Although it affects both sexes, women are four times more likely than men to have this condition. There is no cure for osteoporosis but drugs can slow and sometimes prevent bone mineral loss.

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