http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-05/vitamin-d-shows-no-benefit-in-fighting-cancer-heart-disease.html
Vitamin D supplements don’t help prevent chronic diseases unrelated to the bones, according to a review of published research that challenges the prevailing wisdom held by proponents.
While scientific evidence supports the importance of vitamin D for bone health, its benefits in reducing the risk of diseases ranging from cancer to heart disease as shown in 290 observational studies were largely unconfirmed in 172 randomized controlled trials, experiments considered the gold standard for establishing causal links, according to the review published today in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology medical journal.
The discrepancy in findings between the two types of studies suggests that low levels of vitamin D aren’t a cause but a consequence of ill health, particularly inflammation linked to many diseases, according to the review’s lead author, Philippe Autier, a professor at the International Prevention Research Institute in Lyon, France. The research has implications for almost half of all U.S. adults, who are paying $600 million a year for vitamin D pills.
“Associations between vitamin D and health disorders reported by investigators of observational studies are not causal,” Autier said in the published paper. “Low vitamin D could be the result of inflammatory processes involved in the occurrence and progression of disease.”
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