Shining some light on vitamin D deficiency Other large, long-term studies using similar doses of vitamin D are also getting under way in Finland, the United Kingdom, and Australia. In addition, VITAL's five-year duration is long enough to determine whether 2,000 IU of vitamin D protects against falls and fractures as well as cardiovascular disease and cancer. She adds that the VITAL study dose of 2,000 IU daily ensures that the vast majority of participants in the vitamin D group will have blood levels of vitamin D above 30 ng/mL, while virtually none will have blood levels high enough to cause adverse effects. "VITAL is large enough to demonstrate even small-to-moderate benefits of vitamin D supplementation," she says. Manson is also a principal investigator of the VITAL study. JoAnn Manson, chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital. The Wisconsin study may not have used the right doses of vitamin D or lasted long enough, says Dr. The researchers found that neither dose of vitamin D had a significant effect on bone mass, falls or fractures. In that study, researchers at the University of Wisconsin randomly assigned 260 women to three groups: one got either 800 IU daily and a placebo twice a month one got a placebo daily and 50,000 IU of vitamin D twice a month the third got placebos daily and twice a month. So far, numerous small studies have failed to show conclusively that taking vitamin D supplements prevents cardiovascular disease or cancer, and in 2014 the US Preventive Services Task Force determined that there isn't enough evidence to recommend vitamin D supplements to stave off either condition.Īlthough vitamin D has is essential to bone health, a controlled clinical trial published in JAMA Internal Medicine this week found that a vitamin D supplements didn't build bone in postmenopausal women with blood levels of vitamin D below the 30 ng/mL-the threshold generally considered necessary for good health. We'll also have similar information about the effects of the omega-3 fatty acid capsules, and the effects of vitamin D in combination with them. By the end of 2017, we'll know who got vitamin D and who got the placebo, and whether the vitamin D group had lower rates of those health problems than the placebo group. I volunteered for the study because I had read so many promising reports about vitamin D and had a lot of questions: Does it prevent heart attacks and strokes? Does it reduce the risk of cancer? Does it prevent bone fractures? The VITAL study was designed to answer all three. We don't know which groups we're in - and neither do the researchers. We're also taking another capsule that contains either a gram of omega-3 fatty acids or a placebo. Every day we take identical pills, but half of us are getting 2,000 IU of vitamin D and the rest of us are taking a placebo. Like almost 26,000 other women and men, I'm part of the VITamin D and OmegA-3 TriaL, otherwise known as the VITAL study. I'm not sure what's in this little pill, but I've taken one with breakfast every day for more than two years and will keep taking them for at least two more years. All Rights Reserved.This morning, I swallowed a small translucent capsule I'd popped out of the blister pack I keep next to the coffee pot. She recommends 1000 IU of Vitamin D for people who can't get tested but warns without a proper blood test, it's hard to know how much you need.īe careful, though, she says, because people can take too much Vitamin D. "They say, 'Oh, I spend the whole summer in the garden by the lake,' and then they get their Vitamin D levels in January and they're surprised." "There's a lot of people who would never suspect it," Dr. It's stored in our fat and constantly processed. Vitamin D can't be stored in the summer and then used in the winter. You just need a brief period of direct sunlight." Bell says some are fine-tuning their advice when it comes to sun protection. A light box or rays through a window won't work.Īnd though many doctors recommend sunscreen whenever people are outside, Dr. Bell says we can get good Vitamin D from the sun if we spend 30 minutes a day outside between 10 a.m.
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