A new study found that vitamin D does not prevent type 2 diabetes. If you're taking vitamin D and expecting it to lower your risk of getting type 2 diabetes when you get older, it's time to lower your expectations.
A new study, the largest of its kind, has found that taking 4000 international units (IU) per day, which is on the upper limit of the recommended intake, may double the amount of vitamin D in the blood but it gives most people roughly the same chance of developing blood sugar problems as people who don't take the vitamin.
After about 2.5 years, diabetes appeared at a rate of 9.4% per year with vitamin D supplements and 10.7% with placebo capsules, an insignificant difference. All the patients were already at high risk for developing type 2 diabetes and 80% already had adequate levels of the vitamin.
Chief author Dr. Anastassios Pittas told Reuters Health in a telephone interview that for the 5% of the population "with very low levels of vitamin D, there appears to be a benefit, but we would urge caution and not have people overreact to that."
Dr. Pittas, co-director of the Diabetes and Lipid Center at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, added "these people would need to take vitamin D anyway so it doesn't change the recommendations," noting that that even if the vitamin helped this group to lower their diabetes risk, the numbers were too small to prove that.
The study, reported online by The New England Journal of Medicine and at a meeting of the American Diabetes Association in San Francisco, involved 2,423 volunteers.
About 29 million Americans already have type 2 diabetes and it is the 7th leading cause of death in the US, according to the American Diabetes Association. More than 84 million adults are at risk for the disease. Previous research found that people with low levels of vitamin D faced a higher risk.
The new study, known as D2d, was designed to test whether supplementation would cut the odds.
Pittas said: "The message is there's no magic pill. Weight loss and increasing physical activity is still the best way to prevent diabetes."
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