Vitamin-D Supplements

Source- the IndianExpress

Context:

• A study of over 25,000 people from the United States, showed that Vitamin-D supplementation did not reduce the risk of fractures.
• Many Indians have suggested the intake of Vitamin D with calcium supplements because of low vitamin-D levels.

Prescribing Vitamin-D

• It is believed that Vitamin D helps in maintaining bone health, but it is hard to know for sure, considering a large number of individuals are deficient in Vitamin D.
• Not only Vitamin-D deficiency but also several other deficiencies like iron deficiency leading to anaemia.
• Hence, no particular reason was known for persistent aches, pains, or fractures.
• Some say that Vitamin D doesn’t prevent fractures but helps in healing. It has to be evidence-based.
• The levels of the individual have to be checked before prescribing Vitamin D.
• Most of the treatment is empirical and the serum test to determine Vitamin-D levels is usually not done.
• many studies suggest high levels can pose more risk.

Need for Vitamin-D

• Paediatric population in India, is the most important group, which needs Vitamin D.
• Children with a deficiency can develop rickets- a condition that causes bone pain, poor growth, and soft and weak bones leading to deformities.
• It is necessary to see the impacts on vulnerable segments like pregnant women, and those with non-communicable diseases like diabetes.
• It is believed that lower levels of Vitamin-D are associated with decreased insulin release & insulin resistance in the cells.
• Before prescribing any sort of supplements, individuals need to be tested as there are various types of deficiencies seen.
• There’s research to suggest that the supplement does help those in countries where exposure to natural sunlight is limited.
• People living indoors in air-conditioned environments and sunlight-deprived apartments need supplements.

Vitamin-D in Diabetes, Covid cases-

• A high level of Vitamin-D deficiency and insufficiency was found in individuals with type-2 diabetes.
• This figure alone doesn’t mean too much because the background Vitamin-D deficiency was also very high.
• A lot of things were prescribed during Covid-19.
• People believed that these supplements would boost the immune system & help in fighting the infection.
• But there is no evidence to suggest that people who took these supplements either did not get the infection or they had a milder disease.

Epilogue

There were several therapies tested & studies carried out to generate evidence. Similar large-scale studies should also be done to understand which supplements help and which they don’t. There is not a lot of evidence or robust trials for many supplements available in the market today.