Health benefits of vitamin D

Vitamin D is a nutrient that is a critical component of health. Researchers are still working to understand the full benefits of vitamin D and how taking the vitamin impacts various areas of health.

Previously, researchers thought that vitamin D helped protect against asthma attacks.

However, the latest review published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews found that taking vitamin D likely doesn’t help improve asthma symptoms or reduce the risk for asthma attacks.

This review does not negate the other health benefits of vitamin D.

Vitamin DTrusted Source is a fat-soluble vitamin that people can get through diet, supplements, and sun exposure. Vitamin D plays a crucial role in bone health, muscle fiber growth, and calcium metabolism. Lisa Richards, nutritionist and creator of the Candida Diet, who was not involved in the study, elaborated to Medical News Today why vitamin D was rising in popularity:

“Vitamin D is becoming popular because of its immune support benefits that have been observed. The active form of vitamin D will help to mitigate the body’s inflammatory response and boosts the body’s immune cell production.”

“Vitamin D is essential to allowing your body to use the calcium it is given to support bone growth and health. When vitamin D levels are low, this process is not as efficient, and our bones can become weak,” she added.

Researchers have been interested in studying a variety of the health effects of vitamin D. For example, there has been research on vitamin D and its potential role in preventing adverse health outcomes like cancer, autoimmune diseasesTrusted Source, and cardiovascular disease.

AsthmaTrusted Source is a condition that impacts the lungs and breathing. People with asthma can have times when their asthma gets worse because of specific triggers. Treatment can focus on managing symptoms and avoiding asthma triggers. In a 2016 Cochrane review, the results from several studies suggested that vitamin D could help protect against asthma attacks.

New data has emerged since this review, and researchers sought to re-evaluate the research and how it compared to previous findings.

Researchers in this current review sought to see if vitamin D helped reduce risks of asthma exacerbations or helped improve control of asthma symptoms. Asthma exacerbations meant that symptoms were bad enough to require treatment with systemic corticosteroids. The analysis was similar to the review conducted in 2016.

Review author Adrian Martineau, professor of respiratory infection and immunity at the Blizard Institute, Queen Mary University of London, noted that they used the “Same methodology, but [the] latest review includes data from more trials so we can be more confident in the result.”

Researchers included double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trials that studied vitamin D in children and adults with asthma. They included a total of twenty studies in their analysis involving over 2,225 people with asthma.

MNT