question: Has vitamin D has been shown to reduce incidence of falls in older people in clinical trials?
answer: The rate of falls and the number of fallers was significantly reduced in two studies evaluating the effect of medication on preventing falls; one study (85 participants) compared vitamin D versus placebo in institutionalised women after stroke with low vitamin D levels, and the other study (79 participants) evaluated alendronate versus alphacalcidol in hospitalised people after stroke.
  Two studies testing vitamin D versus placebo and alendronate versus alphacalcidol found a significant reduction in falls and the number of people falling.
  Overall, vitamin D did not reduce rate of falls (RaR 1.00, 95% CI 0.90 to 1.11; seven trials; 9324 participants) or risk of falling (RR 0.96, 95% CI 0.89 to 1.03; 13 trials; 26,747 participants), but may do so in people with lower vitamin D levels before treatment.
  We found 26 eligible trials of moderate quality that enrolled 45,782 participants, the majority of which were elderly and female. Vitamin D use was associated with statistically significant reduction in the risk of falls (odds ratio for suffering at least one fall, 0.86; 95% confidence interval, 0.77-0.96)