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Vitamin D supplements failed to improve cholesterol
Researchers have found that correcting vitamin D deficiencies with high doses of vitamin D supplements did not result in improved cholesterol levels. Rather, this supplemental therapy resulted in a decrease in parathyroid hormone levels and increased calcium levels, new data indicate.
“Our study challenges the notion that vitamin D repletion improves cholesterol levels,” Manish Ponda, MD, MS, researcher and assistant professor of clinical investigation in the laboratory of biochemical genetics and metabolism at The Rockefeller University in New York, said in a press release. “These clinical trial results confirm those from a recent data mining study.”
Ponda and colleagues conducted a randomized, placebo-controlled trial to determine the short-term effects of vitamin D repletion on the lipid profile. Adults aged 18 to 85 years with a vitamin D deficiency (25-hydroxyvitamin D <20 ng/mL) and elevated risk for cardiovascular disease were randomly assigned to either 50,000 IU of vitamin D3 weekly for 8 weeks or placebo (n=151).
Additionally, the researchers examined the effect of vitamin D supplementation on LDL cholesterol and changes in other nuclear magnetic resonance-based and chemical lipid fractions. According to a press release, vitamin D levels nearly tripled in the group that received actual supplements, but those levels were unchanged in the placebo group. They found vitamin D failed to improve the lipid profile.
Further data indicate vitamin D repletion did not change small LDL particle number compared with the placebo group, resulting in an increase of 18 nmol/L (95% CI, –80 to 116). According to data, there were also no changes to the chemical lipid profile: total cholesterol (P=.14); LDL cholesterol (P=.13); HDL cholesterol (P=.71); and triglycerides.
Multivariate regression analyses demonstrated changes in LDL cholesterol were related to changes in serum calcium (P<.001) but inversely associated with the changes in serum parathyroid hormone (P=.02), researchers wrote.
“Therefore, high-dose oral supplementation in an at-risk population may have an adverse effect on cardiovascular risk for those individuals who have the strongest biological response to vitamin D,” they wrote.
Prospective studies of vitamin D repletion are suggested to determine its effect on CV morbidity and mortality, they added.
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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