Vitamin D supplements not always helpful : study finds

There is little evidence to suggest that healthy people benefit from taking vitamin D supplements, BBC News reported.

In a study published in the Lancet, researchers carried out a meta-analysis of 100 trials analyzing the effects of vitamin D supplementation in the adult population .

Researchers from the University of Auckland in New Zealand analyzed a total of 40 randomized controlled trials completed in the past to study the effect of vitamin D on preventing heart attack, stroke, cancer or bone fractures in the general population. They found that vitamin D supplements, which are taken by nearly half of U.S. adults, provide little, if any, health benefit. Specifically, the supplements failed to meet the threshold set by the researchers of reducing the risk of any of these diseases by more than 15 percent.

The results showed that the effect of vitamin D — whether taken with or without calcium — on heart attack, stroke, cancer and bone fractures may fall below a “futility threshold,” indicating that it could be useless to take vitamin D supplements unless you have a true vitamin D deficiency. Moreover, the findings suggest that low levels of vitamin D might even be a consequence rather than a cause of poor health.

The findings of this research were published in Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.

Agencies/Canadajournal