Women who gained weight and had sustained or developed vitamin D levels of 30 ng/ml or greater had less weight gain.

Transcription

1 1. Low Vitamin D Increases Depression After conducting a cross-sectional study of 12,594 participants at The Cooper Institute in Dallas from Nov. 27, 2006, to Oct. 4, 2010, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers analyzed serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] levels. Depression was defined as a Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) score of 10 or more. Those with and those without a history of depression were analyzed separately. Our findings suggest that screening for vitamin D levels in depressed patients and perhaps screening for depression in people with low vitamin D levels might be useful," said E. Sherwood Brown, professor of psychiatry and senior author of the study. 2. Vitamin D, Calcium Decrease Death In this study, the participants (86.8 percent female) had a median age of 70, and researchers found the more vitamin D and calcium they took, the less likely they were to die. The researchers also examined a larger data pool of 24 trials with 88,097 participants and found similar results, i.e., mortality was reduced with vitamin D plus calcium, but not with vitamin D alone. 3. Vitamin D Reduces Weight Gain Researchers from Kaiser Permanente Northwest measured the vitamin D levels (as 25(OH)D) of 4,659 elderly women and followed up with them after 4.5 years. The women were weighed at baseline and follow-up visits, and 1,054 of the women had their vitamin D levels remeasured at follow-up. Among women who gained more than 5-percent body weight, those with baseline vitamin D levels of 30 ng/ml or higher gained 16.4 pounds (12.2 percent of baseline weight) over 4.5 years compared to 18.5 pounds (13.9 percent of baseline weight) in women with levels lower than 30 ng/ml (P=0.04). Women who gained weight and had sustained or developed vitamin D levels of 30 ng/ml or greater had less weight gain. Women with vitamin D levels less than 30 ng/ml had lower baseline weight (141.6 pounds) compared to women with vitamin D levels higher than 30 ng/ml (148.6 pounds). Overall, 25(OH)D status was not associated with weight change over 4.5 years, although there was a significant interaction between 25(OH)D status and weight change category (loss, gain or stable) (P<0.0001).

2 4. Fighting Metabolic Syndrome The study participants has prediabetes, so they had a high risk of developing full-blown diabetes. Researchers conducted the study using data from participants of the Diabetes Prevention Program, a large study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). They divided study subjects into three groups based on plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. The group with the highest levels of vitamin D had a median vitamin D concentration of 30.6 ng/ml, and those in the lowest group had a median vitamin D concentration of 12.1 ng/ml. The risk of having metabolic syndrome with a high vitamin D level was about one-half the risk compared to a low vitamin D level. This association has been documented before, but our study expands the association to people of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds," said the lead author, Joanna Mitri, M.D., a research fellow at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. These include minority groups that are already at higher risk of diabetes." 5. Deficiency Increases Mental Illness In the June 2012 study, 104 adolescents with acute mental health were assessed for vitamin D status for 16 months, and researchers evaluated the relationship of 25-OH vitamin D levels to severity of illness, defined by presence of psychotic features. The researchers noted the preliminary associations between vitamin D deficiency and presence of psychotic features warrant further investigation as to whether vitamin D deficiency is a mediator of illness severity, result of illness severity or both. "Higher prevalence of vitamin D deficiency, but no greater risk of psychosis in African Americans, if confirmed, may have special implications for health disparity and treatment outcome research," they wrote. 6. Vitamin D Decreases Hospital-Acquired Infections The researchers recommend health care professionals check vitamin D status at hospital admission and take immediate steps to address existing insufficient 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels. One of the advantages of vitamin D in combating hospital-acquired infection is that it strengthens the innate immune response, thus overcoming the antibiotic resistance of many bacteria encountered in hospitals, the authors wrote. In an accompanying editorial, David McCarthy, M.D., outlined what hospitals could do to overcome vitamin D deficiency among hospital patients. Among these recommendations is making high-dose vitamin D3 (5,000 and 50,000 IU) capsules available to the patients.

3 7. Preventing Fractures The findings of this meta-analysis, which pooled data from 11 double blind, randomized, controlled trials and included more than 30,000 participants, reinforce the importance of vitamin D for maintaining strong bones and protecting against osteoporosis in the aging population. Importantly, this meta-analysis incorporated data on the amount of vitamin D actually taken by the people in each study, not simply the amount they were assigned to take. The analysis showed those who are most vulnerable to vitamin D deficiency especially women 65 years of age or older with low baseline levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D benefit from vitamin D supplementation at levels of 800 IU/d and above. 8. Low Levels Increase Diabetes Risk Vitamin D insufficiency and obesity are individual risk factors for insulin resistance and diabetes," said lead author Shaum Kabadi, a doctoral candidate in epidemiology at Drexel. Our results suggest that the combination of these two factors increases the odds of insulin resistance to an even greater degree than would have been expected based on their individual contributions." The researchers used data from participants from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) older than 20 years of age who had type-2 diabetes (n = 12,900). Participants younger than 20 years of age who were free of diabetes were limited to the insulin resistance analysis (n=5,806). 9. Deficiency Harms Lungs The American Thoracic Society s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine study from 2012 suggested vitamin D sufficiency may have a protective effect against the damaging effects of smoking on lung function. The study examined the relationship between vitamin D deficiency, smoking, lung function and the rate of lung function decline over a 20-year period in a cohort of 626 adult white men from the Normative Aging Study. We found that vitamin D sufficiency (defined as serum vitamin D levels of less than 20 ng/ml) had a protective effect on lung function and the rate of lung function decline in smokers," said lead author Nancy E. Lange, MD, MPH, of the Channing Laboratory, Brigham and Women s Hospital.

4 10. Deficiency Increases Death Risk The July 2012 study divided people into four groups. The low group had levels less than 50 nanomole per liter; the highest group had vitamin D of 84 or higher. In general, those who had lower vitamin D levels were more likely to be frail. This study examined more than 4,300 adults older than 60 using data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. What this really means is that it is important to assess vitamin D levels in older adults, and especially among people who are frail," said lead author Ellen Smit of Oregon State University. Smit said past studies have separately associated frailty and low vitamin D with a greater mortality risk, but this is the first to look at the combined effect. Our study suggests that there is an opportunity for intervention with those who are in the pre-frail group, but could live longer, more independent lives if they get proper nutrition and exercise." 11. Deficiency Linked to Illness Researchers from both of the studies recommend screening severely ill kids with risk factors for vitamin D deficiency, as it influences cardiovascular and immune function. The first study, "The Association of Vitamin D Status With Pediatric Critical Illness," evaluated blood samples of 326 critically ill children from 2005 to Researchers measured total serum 25 hydroxyvitamin D by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. "Vitamin D Deficiency in Critically Ill Children," was a study of 511 severely ill children from 2009 to Vitamin D Reduces Winter Colds For this study, researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital reviewed a subset of 247 children from the Blue Sky Study. Some of the children were assigned to daily ingestion of unfortified regular milk (control; n=104) or milk fortified with 300 IU of vitamin D3 (n=143). At baseline, the median serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) was 7 ng/ml (17 nmol/l), and at the end of the trial, the median 25(OH)D levels of children in the control versus the vitamin D group was significantly different (7 vs. 19 ng/ml [47 nmol/l]; P<0.001). 13. Better Brain Health in Babies The Spanish population-based cohort study INfancia y Medio Ambiente Project recruited 1,820 pregnant women during the first trimester of pregnancy between November 2003 and February Maternal plasma circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (25[OH]D3) concentration was measured by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) in pregnancy. Offspring mental and psychomotor scores were assessed by trained psychologists at age 14 months by using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. The median plasma value of 25(OH)D3 in pregnancy was 29.6 ng/ml. After adjustment for potential confounders, infants of mothers with 25(OH)D3 concentrations

5 in pregnancy more than 30 ng/ml showed higher mental score and higher psychomotor score in comparison with those of mothers with 25(OH)D3 concentrations less than 20 ng/ml. 14. Low Levels Increase Heart Disease In this September 2012 study, researches measured plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D in 10,170 women and men from the Danish general population. During 29 years of follow-up, 3,100 people developed heart disease; 1,625 suffered a heart attack; and 6,747 died. Individuals with the highest vitamin D levels (more than 50 nanomol per liter serum) had a reduced risk of heart disease, heart attack, early death and fatal heart disease/heart disease compared to people who had the lowest level (less than 15 nanomol per liter serum). In a meta-analysis of 18 studies, risk of ischemic heart disease and early death were increased by 39 percent and 46 percent respectively for people who had the lowest blood levels of vitamin D. Peter Brøndum-Jacobsen, Ph.D., Clinical Biochemical Department, Copenhagen University Hospital, said this was the largest study to date of vitamin D and ischemic heart disease and death. 15. Low D Increases Alzheimer's Risk Of the 37 studies included in the review, eight compared the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores of subjects with less than 50 nmol/l vitamin D and those with greater than 50 nmol/l, finding a positive effect for those with higher levels. Six other studies compared Alzheimer's disease to controls; despite discarding two trials for outdated methods, the remaining trials showed low vitamin D concentration were significantly lower in the Alzheimer's group. Academic researchers from McMasters University, Hamilton, University of Waterloo, Kitchener, and University of Exeter, Devon, England, culled studies from five databases, including all those with a comparative group. In the included trials, vitamin D levels were measured, cognitive function was assessed by using global or domain-specific tests, and dementia was diagnosed according to "recognized criteria."