Vitamin D supplementation benefits lipid profile and is beneficial as a dietary intervention for managing dyslipidemia, says Nima Radkhah and colleagues in their recent study “The effect of vitamin D supplementation on lipid profile: an umbrella review of meta-analysis” published in Advances in Nutrition.
In this study, vitamin D significantly decreased TG levels (no significant effect on LDL-C levels). THEY NOTED THAT vitamin D effects on HDL-C and TC levels produced contradictory findings. The team also reported doses ≥ 4000 IU/day and duration of intervention ≤12 weeks as critical variables.
Vitamin D is beneficial in preventing and controlling risk factors associated with non-communicable chronic diseases, but the findings remain conflicting. In the present study, researchers investigated the effect of vitamin D supplementation on low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), total cholesterol (TC), and triglyceride (TG) as components of lipid profile using data from PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. The umbrella meta-analysis followed the PRISMA guidelines.
The key findings of this study are:
The team included 25 meta-analyses.
Vitamin D significantly decreased TG and TC levels.
Vitamin D supplementation increased HDL-C levels.
In the Weighted Mean Difference (WMD) analysis, Vitamin D significantly reduced only TG levels.
Concluding further, they said that vitamin D supplementation is a beneficial adjuvant therapy for those with vitamin D deficiency in managing lipid profile levels.
Vitamin D might decrease TG levels. It also reduces TC levels in those supplemented with a dose of >4000 IU/day or for less than 14 weeks.
They said results should be interpreted with caution due to high heterogeneity and the poor quality of the included meta-analyses.
The findings of this study support that vitamin D supplementation is a beneficial adjuvant therapy in managing lipid profile levels among those with vitamin D deficiency.
Further reading:
https://advances.nutrition.org/article/S2161-8313(23)01362-5/fulltext