People who need to protect the health of their bones need to take calcium and vitamin D supplements together, a European conference heard yesterday.
Researchers said that vitamin D on its own seemed to be ineffective.
An analysis, involving more than 68,000 patients, found that the combination of supplements was linked to a 20 per cent reduction in the rate of hip fractures after 16 months of treatment.
The findings were unveiled at the European Symposium on Calcified Tissue in Vienna, Austria, by Professor Bo Abrahamsen, of Copenhagen University, Denmark.
The people in the study were aged between 47 and 107 with an average age of 69.
The research also found a 10 per cent reduction in fractures of other bones as a result of taking calcium and vitamin D together.
Professor Abrahamsen said: "Vitamin D on its own is not very effective, even if the dose is doubled.
"In people over fifty, the combination of vitamin D with calcium, however, seems to work equally well in people with or without a history of bone fractures – this is important new knowledge."
He added: "We cannot yet recommend that all adult, healthy people should take oral vitamin D and calcium supplements to prevent bone fracture in later life, but our findings indicate that vitamin D supplements taken daily with calcium is a simple and cheap way of reducing the risk of bone fractures in people in late middle age and onwards."
Fellow researcher Professor Tahir Masud, of Nottingham University Hospital, UK, said: "Previous data have shown that there is a high degree of vitamin insufficiency in the older population in the UK. Many older people at high risk of fracture do not receive vitamin D and calcium supplements."
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