Vitamin D supplementation for prevention of mortality in adults Cochrane Reviews, 07/11/2011 Bjelakovic G et al. – Vitamin D in the form of vitamin D3 seems to decrease mortality in predominantly elderly women who are mainly in institutions and dependent
Posted on Mon, Jul 11, 2011
Vitamin D supplementation for prevention of mortality in adults
Cochrane Reviews, 07/11/2011
Bjelakovic G et al. – Vitamin D in the form of vitamin D3 seems to decrease mortality in predominantly elderly women who are mainly in institutions and dependent care. Vitamin D2, alfacalcidol, and calcitriol had no statistically significant effect on mortality. Vitamin D3 combined with calcium significantly increased nephrolithiasis. Both alfacalcidol and calcitriol significantly increased hypercalcaemia.
Methods
- The authors searched The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS, the Science Citation Index Expanded, and Conference Proceedings Citation Index–Science (to January 2011).
- They scanned bibliographies of relevant publications and asked experts and pharmaceutical companies for additional trials.
- They included randomised trials that compared vitamin D at any dose, duration, and route of administration versus placebo or no intervention.
- Vitamin D could have been administered as supplemental vitamin D (vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) or vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol)) or an active form of vitamin D (1α–hydroxyvitamin D (alfacalcidol) or 1,25–dihydroxyvitamin D (calcitriol)).
- Six authors extracted data independently.
- Random–effects and fixed–effect model meta–analyses were conducted.
- For dichotomous outcomes, they calculated the risk ratios (RR).
- To account for trials with zero events, meta–analyses of dichotomous data were repeated using risk differences (RD) and empirical continuity corrections.
- Risk of bias was considered in order to minimise risk of systematic errors.
- Trial sequential analyses were conducted to minimise the risk of random errors.
Results
- Fifty randomised trials with 94,148 participants provided data for the mortality analyses.
- Most trials included ...read more
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