Vitamin D Associated With Physical Function, Mortality in Older Hospitalized Adults

A study presented at the Society for Endocrinology BES annual meeting determined older adults hospitalized for acute illness with a low vitamin D level are more likely to have a longer length of stay, higher rates of falling, and a higher mortality rate compared to inpatients with a higher vitamin D level, reports Healio . "These results do not infer causality, and it may be that the vitamin D function is simply a marker of baseline reductions in a person's physical function," says Coventry University Professor Zaki Hassan-Smith. The researchers analyzed data from 1,332 persons older than 65 admitted to acute medicine between January 2017 and January 2018, identified by health informatics. A cohort of 766 subjects underwent vitamin D status assessment, with a median serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D level of 31 nmol/L. Participants in the lowest quartile for vitamin D tended to have a longer length of stay compared to those in the highest quartile, as well as lower abbreviated mental test scores, higher Waterlow ulcer-risk scores, and a trend toward higher fall scores and lower Manchester mobility scores. "We would like to see large-scale vitamin D supplementation studies in acutely unwell persons to investigate these associations further," concluded Hassan-Smith.