Studies have shown that vitamin D supplements may not be effective for people who are overweight or obese. This is because if the body has too much fat, it is difficult for the body to metabolize vitamin D supplements.
Dr. Dearry Tobias, an epidemiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in the U.S., recently published the results of a re-analysis of the VITamin D and OmegA-3 TriaL data, one of the largest vitamin D studies ever conducted, in the American Medical Association journal "JAMA Network Open."
(Picture from Unsplash)
The study tracked 26,000 people who took vitamin D supplements daily for about five years between 2010 and 2018. The participants were over 50 years old, and there was no cancer or cardiovascular disease at the start of the study. Half of the participants took supplements containing 2000 IUs, five times the recommended daily intake of vitamin D by the U.S. health authorities (international units), while the other half took placebo. As a result, it was found that the overall risk of death from cancer was 20% lower in the group who took vitamin D. To see if weight affected the results, the researchers re-analyzed data on 16,000 of them. They were tested for blood at the start of the experiment and up to two years later. The sample included 6,600 people whose body mass index was in the overweight category and 4,400 people in the obese or pathological obesity group. Both groups had increased vitamin D levels in their blood. However, the increase was significantly higher in the overweight or non-obese group. After two years of observation, the difference between the groups was clear. If the body mass index is high, the reaction of vitamin D supplements has weakened. According to the researchers, people who are overweight or obese may be because fat cells can absorb more vitamins and extract more vitamins from the blood. Being overweight may impair your physical ability to make or process vitamins, which may lead to lower levels. The original VITAL data analysis showed that vitamin D supplements had several positive effects on health, but only in people with a body mass index of less than 25.
Writer: Yeyoung Jeon
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