Calcitriol lowers risk of falls in elderly women

Last Updated: 2007-02-09 14:57:55 -0400 (Reuters Health)

By David Douglas

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In elderly women with reduced kidney function, treatment with calcitriol, the active form of vitamin D, appears to offer protection against falls, researchers report.

"Frequent falls are a cause of long term nursing home admission and make elderly people afraid to walk," Dr. J Christopher Gallagher told Reuters Health. Calcitriol reduced falls by 50 percent in women over age 65 and particularly in those with reduced kidney function.

Gallagher of Creighton University Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska and colleagues randomly allocated 415 women aged 65 to 77 years to calcitriol (0.25 micrograms twice daily), estrogen and progestin therapy with or without calcitriol or to placebo.

Follow-up at 3 years showed that calcitriol treatment decreased the number of falls and of those who fell. In the placebo group, reduced kidney function was a predictor of the number of falls per person but not of those who fell.

In subjects with reduced kidney function, calcitriol therapy reduced the rate of falls by 53 percent. In combination with estrogen and progestin, the corresponding proportion was 61 percent. With estrogen and progestin alone, it was 24 percent.

Overall, in subjects with normal kidney function, the reduction in falls was 30 percent.

"Kidney function gets worse with age -- calcitriol is made in the kidneys," Gallagher noted, and it appears that "calcitriol could be a very effective agent in preventing falls in the elderly and improving their quality of life."

Gallagher speculated that calcitriol might work by "increasing muscle strength and also by improving balance -- this may be through an effect on the brain."

SOURCE: The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, January 2007.