A new study suggests that Vitamin D supplements do not prevent any form of diseases.
Americans spend approximately $600 million yearly on buying vitamin D supplements because it has been long believed that the intake of such nourishment can put off illnesses like diabetes, heart diseases, and cancer, but on Friday, researchers claim that low vitamin D is not a cause, but a result, of any sickness.
Vitamin D is synthesized in the body from sun exposure. It is also obtainable from eggs, fish liver oil, and fatty fish like salmon and mackerel.
Its course of action is to boost the uptake of calcium and enhance bone formation. Additionally, in some observational studies, low vitamin D is also linked to greater risks of many acute and chronic diseases.
To prove if that is a cause-and-effect relationship or not, Philippe Autier of France's International Prevention Research Institute in Lyon and his co-researchers, studied and analyzed hundreds of observational studies and clinical trials that have examined effects of vitamin D levels on “non-bone health” like diabetes, heart diseases, and cancer.
The researchers discovered that the benefits of high vitamin levels were not replicated in randomized trials where subjects were given vitamin D to see if it would protect against certain illnesses.
Autier, told Reuters, “What this discrepancy suggests is that decreases in vitamin D levels are a marker of deteriorating health.”
Meaning to say, serious illnesses like diabetes and cancer may cause reduction of Vitamin D in the body, but, increased intake of vitamin D doesn’t mean it could prevent illnesses.
However, experts not involved in the study, still believe that the study’s conclusions were unexceptional and may discourage people from taking vitamin D.
Nigel Belshaw, research leader at Britain's Institute of Food Research, told Reuters, “This paper is very useful because it highlights the need for more long term intervention studies specifically looking at the effect of proper vitamin D supplementation on disease risk.
“However, it does not suggest that taking vitamin D supplements cannot be useful in some cases for some purposes. Neither does it rule out a health advantage of increasing vitamin D levels in the blood for those who are deficient.”
Helen Macdonald, a professor of nutrition and musculoskeletal health at Britain's University of Aberdeen said that vitamin D was vital for bone health.
“And we already know that people who are at risk of vitamin D deficiency, like older people, pregnant and breastfeeding women, young children and people with darker skin, need to take a supplement because it is difficult to boost vitamin D levels from food sources alone."
