Diabetes and vitamin D
Scientists have proven that vitamin D does not protect against the development of diabetes
Taking large amounts of fish oil or other forms of vitamin D does not protect a person from developing type 2 diabetes. This conclusion was reached by doctors from the United States, who published their findings in the New England Journal of Medicine (Pittas et al, Vitamin D Supplementation and Prevention of Type 2 Diabetes – VM).
"Our colleagues have already talked about the existence of a link between low levels of vitamin D in the body and a high probability of getting type 2 diabetes. Other studies have shown that it improves the functioning of insulin-producing cells. At the same time, no one has checked whether it can slow down or prevent the development of the disease," says Marlene Staten from the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda (in a press release, NIH–funded trial finds vitamin D does not prevent type 2 diabetes in people at high risk - VM).
According to WHO statistics, there are 347 million patients with diabetes mellitus in the world, and approximately every 9 out of 10 diabetics suffer from type 2 diabetes resulting from an increase in the body's immunity to insulin. 80% of diabetics live in low- and middle-income countries. By 2030, diabetes will become the seventh cause of death worldwide.
One of the reasons for the development of this form of diabetes, as recent experiments on mice show, is the "overgrowth" of the pancreas with fat and the development of inflammation that changes the work of beta cells that produce insulin and cause them to produce less hormone.
A year ago, American biologists noticed, experimenting on cultures of these bodies, that large doses of vitamin D helped them survive in such an environment, "repair" themselves when serious damage appeared and begin to produce normal amounts of insulin.
Such discoveries, as Staten noted, have long made doctors wonder whether vitamin D and other antioxidants that protect beta cells from death and damage can be used to prevent the development of diabetes among people at risk.
Her team tested this idea in practice by recruiting a group of almost 2.5 thousand volunteers who were in a prediabetic state and had constantly high blood sugar levels. Scientists tried to protect them from diabetes with the help of a "horse" dose of a synthetic analogue of fish oil, which exceeded the norm by about eight times.
Observing the changes in their health status over the next three years, the scientists noted how often diabetes occurred among the participants of the experiments and members of the control group and compared these data with various vital signs of the volunteers.
To the great regret of doctors, taking vitamin D did not affect the incidence of diabetes in any way. In both groups, every fourth volunteer suffered from it by the time the experiment was completed. Differences between them did not appear when taking into account gender, age, ethnic and other characteristics.
This failure, as doctors emphasize, does not mean that the development of type 2 diabetes cannot be slowed down or prevented. Lifestyle changes or taking antidiabetic medications, such as metformin, significantly reduce this probability, the authors conclude.
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