Vitamin D is being slapped in the face? Study says there is no difference in mortality, but risk of cancer death increases by 15%
Does vitamin D supplementation reduce mortality? Study finds 15% increased risk of cancer death
Does taking a daily vitamin D supplement help your health? The research team of Professor Rachel Neale from The University of Queensland in Australia published the latest research in the authoritative journal “The Lancet”. After a five-year controlled trial, they found that elderly subjects who were randomly assigned to supplement vitamin D had better cardiovascular health. There was no significant decrease in vascular mortality. On the contrary, the risk of cancer death in this group of subjects was even slightly higher than that in the placebo group.
In the “D-Health” research project chaired by Professor Neale, the team recruited 21,315 participants over the age of 60 and allocated them in a random, double-blind model. The participants were divided into a placebo group and a control group. The group received monthly vitamin D supplements of 60,000 international units (IU) for 5 years and the differences in mortality from cardiovascular, cancer, and other causes between the two groups were analyzed.
A total of 1,100 subjects died during the study period, 538 in the placebo group and 562 in the vitamin D group. Vitamin supplements were associated with a slight 4% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease and a 17% lower risk of death from other causes. However, the total mortality rate and cancer mortality rate are relatively high, with the cancer mortality rate being about 15% higher. The study pointed out that for the elderly population tested, regular vitamin D3 supplementation did not reduce the overall mortality rate, and it may not be suitable for people who are already vitamin D-sufficient.
Doctors say low vitamin D is a risk indicator, not a treatment
Another large-scale study “VITAL” included more than 25,000 subjects. After a 5-year investigation, it was found that whether it was the vitamin supplement control group or the placebo group, the total mortality related to all diseases was almost the same. , and the mortality rate was not different from the subjects’ vitamin D levels before participating in the trial. The secondary results of this study stated that vitamin D supplementation can reduce the occurrence of metastatic and invasive cancer by 0.4%.
John Mandrola, a cardiologist at Baptist Health Medical Center, pointed out in the meta-analysis of vitamin D that in hundreds of systematic analyzes related to vitamin D, there is no credible evidence that vitamin D can reduce mortality. However, this may also be related to the ethnic groups selected for the study and the items analyzed.
Dr. Mandrola believes that there are many observational studies that have found that low vitamin D levels in the body are associated with myocardial infarction and COVID-19 severity rates, but these associations may only consider low vitamin D as a risk factor and should not be a treatment target. .
“If patients don’t care about their obesity, high blood pressure and other problems because so many studies claim that vitamin D is important, but only care about whether their vitamin D is enough, this is actually more dangerous!” Mandrola believes that many treatments for vitamin D Studies of mortality reductions fell short of expectations, and benefits in secondary outcomes were mostly inconsequential and not statistically significant.
It’s not like the human body is an engine that can be restored to normal by just fixing one part (vitamin D levels), Mandrola said. After all, “magic tools” with obvious treatments such as insulin are very rare. When people face various studies that heavily promote some of the benefits of vitamin D, they may have to consider that “correlation” does not mean therapeutic efficacy.
References:
The D-Health Trial: a randomized controlled trial of the effect of vitamin D on mortality
Vitamin D Supplements and Prevention of Cancer and Cardiovascular Disease
Association between vitamin D supplementation and mortality: systematic review and meta-analysis
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