It's estimated that over 50 million Americans now have some sort of metabolic syndrome. This means that these people experience a myriad of risk factors such as abdominal obesity, insulin resistance and/or glucose intolerance and elevated blood pressure. In turn, these risk factors make them far more susceptible to cardiovascular diseases, stroke and type 2 diabetes. Now that these risk factors are reaching almost pandemic proportions, in comes good old vitamin D to the rescue.
The results of a study, published in Diabetes and the January 2009 issue of Life Extension, show that middle aged men and women with "lower serum levels of vitamin D are at a higher risk of developing insulin resistance and elevated blood sugar over a 10-year period." *
The study, known as the Ely Prospective Study, involved 524 non-diabetic volunteers. First, their levels of serum vitamin D were measured along with other health factors related to metabolic syndrome risk. This includes blood pressure, plasma glucose, lipids, waist circumference, weight and height. The rest was simple. Let these individuals live their lives for 10 years to see how vitamin D intake affected their risk factors. How do you think the vitamin D levels affected their metabolic syndrome risk factors? You probably could have guessed. That is the problem with some of these studies. It took over a decade to "prove" something most homeopathics already know and take advantage of, but I suppose that is the double-edged sword of science and medicine. That being said, here are the cold hard facts:
According to the article in Life Extension by Dayna Dye, "having a higher base-line serum vitamin D level was associated with a lower adjusted 10-year risk of elevated blood sugar, insulin resistance, and high metabolic syndrome score. The authors remark that the study's findings add evidence to previously reported observations concerning vitamin D's effect on metabolic syndrome risk."
• Forouhi NG, Luan J, Cooper A, Boucher BJ, Wareham NJ. Baseline serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D is predictive of future glycemic status and insulin resistance: the Medical Research Council Ely Prospective Study 1990-2000. Diabetes. 2008 Oct;57(10):2619-25.
© Wellness Information Services