04 July 2013
A high-dose supplementation with vitamin D may be an easy adjunct therapy for depression and major cardiovascular risk factors among women with type 2 diabetes, reports a new US study.
The clinical pilot study included 46 women (average age of 55 years) who had suffered from type 2 diabetes for an average of 8 years and had insufficient blood concentrations of vitamin D (18 ng/ml), who took a weekly vitamin D dose of 50,000 international units for six months (1). The study results showed that the participants’ vitamin D concentrations reached sufficient levels (an average of 38 ng/ml) and their moods improved significantly: while a depression symptom survey indicated moderate depression at the beginning of the study, the survey results indicated no depression after six months. In addition, blood pressure im-proved, with the upper pressure decreasing from 140.4 mm Hg to 132.5 mm Hg.
The researchers commented that larger, randomized controlled trials are needed to determine the impact of vitamin D in diabetes patients. About 10 percent of the people in the United States have diabetes, and the incidence is projected to increase to 25 percent by 2050. Women with type 2 diabetes have worse disease progression than men, which may be due to depression, a malady that affects more than 25 percent of women with diabetes. Depression impairs a patient’s ability to manage her disease by eating right, exerci-sing, taking medications, etc. Many Americans do not get enough vitamin D (the recommended dietary allowance for women 51 to 70 is 600 IU per day) and people with diabetes are at especially high risk for vitamin D insufficiency or deficiency because of limited intake of foods high in vitamin D, obesity, lack of sun exposure and genetic variations.
15 July 2012
The precise dietary requirements for various vitamins have been controversial since their discovery in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Early recommendations were based on the amounts needed to avoid so-called “diseases of deficiency”
17 February 2014
A new study from France reports that women severely deficient in vitamin D may be more likely to have diastolic orthostatic hypotension than women with higher levels.
26 September 2016
