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Nursing home residents who take vitamin D supplements are significantly less likely to fall than residents who are deficient in the vitamin, according to a new review.

Researchers with The Cochrane Library, an independent, international healthcare collaborative, reviewed five studies of vitamin D use in nursing homes. Four of those studies looked at fall rates among nursing home patients who take vitamin D. Residents were 28% less likely to experience a fall when given daily doses of vitamin D, and the benefit was most apparent in seniors who had low levels of the vitamin at the start of the study.

Other previous studies show that seniors are 10 times more likely to experience a fall while staying in a nursing home. Daily doses of vitamin D could be a good way to help significantly reduce those falls, researchers suggest. The report appears in the January 2010 edition of The Cochrane Library journal.