Time for yet another FuturePundit post on why vitamin D is probably the best nutrient to take as a supplement. A meta-analysis of 18 randomized controlled trials using vitamin D supplements found a 7% lower risk of death among vitamin D supplement users.
Individuals who take vitamin D supplements appear to have a lower risk of death from any cause over an average follow-up time of six-years, according to a meta-analysis of 18 previously published studies in the September 10 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Past studies have suggested that deficiencies in vitamin D might be associated with a higher risk of death from cancer, heart disease and diabetes—illnesses that account for 60 percent to 70 percent of deaths in high-income nations, according to background information in the article. “If the associations made between vitamin D and these conditions were consistent, then interventions effectively strengthening vitamin D status should result in reduced total mortality,” the authors write.
Philippe Autier, M.D., of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France, and Sara Gandini, Ph.D., of the European Institute of Oncology, Milano, Italy, searched for randomized controlled trials of vitamin D supplements published before November 2006. They analyzed 18 separate trials that included 57,311 participants and evaluated doses of vitamin D ranging from 300 to 2,000 international units, with an average dose of 528 international units. Most commercially available supplements contain between 400 and 600 international units.
Over an average follow-up period of 5.7 years, 4,777 of the participants died. Individuals who took vitamin D had a 7 percent lower risk of death than those who did not. In the nine trials that collected blood samples, those who took supplements had an average 1.4- to 5.2-fold higher blood level of vitamin D than those who did not.
The reduction in all cause mortality suggests that vitamin D doesn't just reduce one risk while boosting another. Too many things that might help in some ways end up hurting in other ways. Vitamin D looks like a big net benefit.
Aside from vitamin D I'm hard pressed to think of a single vitamin that holds the promise of such a large benefit if taken as a supplement by most people in developed countries. Most likely you could do much better for your health by eating more vegetables and fruits than by taking any other vitamin.
Vitamin D deficiency early in pregnancy is associated with a five-fold increased risk of preeclampsia, according to a study from the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences reported this week in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
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