Vitamin D has been touted for its beneficial effects on a range of human systems, from enhancing bone health to reducing the risk of developing certain cancers. But it does not improve cholesterol levels, according to a new study conducted at The Rockefeller University Hospital. A team of scientists has shown that, at least in the short term, cholesterol levels did not improve when volunteers with vitamin D deficiency received mega-doses of vitamin D. The finding is published in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.
The researchers, led by Manish Ponda, an assistant professor of clinical investigation in Jan Breslow's Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, studied 151 people with vitamin D deficiency. The study participants were given either 50,000 internationals units of vitamin D3 or a placebo weekly for eight weeks. Participants' cholesterol levels were measured before and after treatment.
Correcting vitamin D deficiencies with high doses of oral vitamin D supplements did not change cholesterol levels, Ponda and his colleagues found, despite effectively increasing vitamin D to recommended levels. Vitamin D levels nearly tripled in the group that received supplements, but were unchanged in the placebo group.
"Our study challenges the notion that replenishing vitamin D improves cholesterol," says Ponda. "In fact, a biologic response to vitamin D was correlated with an increase in LDL cholesterol."
Ponda and his colleagues also tested the effect of vitamin D supplementation on lipoprotein particle size and number, biomarkers of cholesterol not typically measured in clinical practice, and found no change in response to increases in vitamin D.
These clinical trial results confirm those from a recent data mining study, published in July in the journal Circulation, conducted by the Breslow lab in collaboration with scientists at Quest Diagnostics. In that study, the researchers
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| Contact: Joseph Bonner bonnerj@rockefeller.edu 212-327-8998 Rockefeller University Source:Eurekalert |