Vitamin D and diabetes:
Recent guidelines reflect a gradually increasing acceptance of enhanced vitamin D supplementation, which has a wide margin of safety, and the potential for individual health improvement may be substantial. Please see the section on vitamin D for further details.
A study looked at the relationship between vitamin D level and diabetes mellitus type 2. Vitamin D level is most commonly measured by physicians using a blood test for the concentration of the compound 25-hydroxy vitamin D which is also known as 25(OH)D in the body. The study included 276 Korean patients with diabetes mellitus type 2 with 25(OH)D levels which were considered “deficient” and “insufficient”. The authors defined vitamin D deficiency as a 25(OH)D level of less than 20 ng/ml and vitamin D insufficiency as a level of 20-29 ng/ml. Blood and urine tests were performed after at least 9 hours of fasting, and serum 25(OH)D was measured in a central laboratory in Seoul, Korea. To compare their results, 160 non-diabetic Koreans were selected as control subjects. The results of the study found that T2DM patients were significantly more likely than their non-diabetic counterparts to be taller, have higher body weight, higher body mass index, and bigger waist circumference. Compared with control subjects, patients with T2DM had a lower 25(OH)D level (15.4±0.5 vs. 12.9±0.4 ng/ml, p<0.01). Factors directly affecting levels of 25(OH)D in T2DM patients were found to include HbA1C (hemoglobin A1C), triglyceride, and LDL-C (low-density lipoprotein cholesterol). This retrospective analysis showed that patients with T2DM have a very low 25(OH)D level. High levels of TG, LDL, and HbA1C were found to have a consistent association with vitamin D deficiency in diabetes mellitus type 2 patients. (38)