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High-dose vitamin D does not affect muscle strength, balance in postmenopausal women
Muscular strength, balance and quality of life in postmenopausal women with osteopenia or osteoporosis were unaffected by high-dose vitamin D supplementation compared with standard doses, according to findings published in Clinical Endocrinology.
Guri Grimnes, MD, PhD, of the division of internal medicine, University Hospital of North Norway, and colleagues evaluated 297 postmenopausal women with osteopenia or osteoporosis receiving daily elemental calcium (1,000 mg) plus vitamin D3 (800 IU) randomly assigned to capsules with additional vitamin D3 (20,000 IU; high-dose group; n = 149) or placebo (standard dose group; n = 148) twice per week for 12 months.
Both groups had increased mean serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels (P < .01 for both), but the increase was greater in the high-dose group compared with the standard dose group (P < .01).
No statistically significant differences were found between the groups for muscle strength, balance or quality of life.
Participants with polymorphisms in rs3829251 had better grip strength in both the dominant (P < .05) and nondominant (P < .01) hands compared with participants without the genotype, but the group samples were small. The effect of vitamin D intervention on change in muscle strength did not appear to interact with single nucleotide polymorphisms in other vitamin D-related genes.
“Compared to standard-dose, 1-year supplementation with high-dose vitamin D does not improve muscle strength or quality of life in already vitamin D sufficient women,” Grimnes told Endocrine Today. “The clinical implication is that high-dose vitamin D cannot be recommended for this purpose. To move forward in this field, we need randomized, controlled trials performed in vitamin D-deficient participants.” – by Amber Cox
For more information:
Guri Grimnes , MD, PhD, can be reached at guri.grimnes@unn.no.
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.