Vitamin D Insufficiency

More about the cure du jour. (This piece is from an update sent by PDRNetwork)

While vitamin D deficiency is defined by the presence of bone disease (either rickets or osteomalacia), the term "insufficiency" has been used to describe suboptimal levels of vitamin D that are often associated with other skeletal and nonskeletal health outcomes...However, unlike the well-established skeletal benefits of vitamin D, the evidence for other presumed effects is based mainly on observational studies.

A study published in the January issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings examined the evidence for making clinical decisions based on the strongest research to date for the potential benefits of vitamin D associated with numerous outcomes. These included lower mortality rate; lower cardiovascular mortality; less musculoskeletal pain; and reduced risk of diabetes mellitus, cancer, multiple sclerosis, allergy and asthma, infection, mental illness, and renal disease...

Overall, the authors concluded that most of the current data on vitamin D is mainly based on observational, epidemiological outcomes, which are "useful for generating hypotheses but not for proving causality." Therefore, the evidence for benefits beyond bone health is not strong.

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