Vitamin D supplementation enhances muscle strength, reduces falls for elderly

This research is showing one of the many benefits of vitamin D supplementation: stronger muscles and bones. Vitamin D also prevents prostate cancer, breast cancer, mental depression, osteoporosis and schizophrenia. At least that's what a voice in my head told me...

• Elderly people who get supplemental vitamin D in their diets have stronger muscles than those who don't, based on evidence from studies funded by the Agricultural Research Service.
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• The findings underscore the importance of getting adequate vitamin D for the prevention of falls among the elderly.
• An estimated one-third of people over age 65--and up to half of those over age 80--are injured in falls each year.
• Bess Dawson-Hughes is director of the Bone Metabolism Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, Mass., and is also a physician and nutrition specialist.
• She, along with colleagues in academia and medicine, researched the five major vitamin D clinical trials conducted with older populations during the last 43 years.
• The researchers' analysis revealed that among more than 1,200 participants studied in controlled trials during those decades, elderly people fell down 22 percent less often if they took vitamin D supplements.