Disappointing results have emerged from tests which have been looking into the effects of vitamin D on the side effects caused by osteoarthritis.
The two year clinical study looked into the effects of the vitamin on symptoms including joint pain and cartilage loss. Published in JAMA, the results showed that patients with these types of symptoms did not experience any kind of significant relief or increase in wellbeing when taking a vitamin D supplement.
Tufts Medical Centre in the USA was at the heart of the research, which was carried out on 146 participants over a two-year period. All participants in the study had symptomatic knee osteoarthritis. Through a process of randomisation, participants were selected to either receive a dose of vitamin D on a daily basis or a placebo supplement.
Knee pain severity and the volume of cartilage loss were then measured in both groups, to assess whether the vitamin D was having any kind of beneficial effect. Interestingly, knee pain fell slightly in both the vitamin D group and the placebo group. This was combined with the fact that cartilage volume decreased by around four percent in both of the groups (which should, in theory, lead to more knee pain rather than less, suggesting an element of psychological influence).
Due to the fact, however, that the cartilage did increase this much (and equally across both groups) it was found that the vitamin D did not have any sort of beneficial effect on the symptoms of those suffering from severe forms of knee osteoarthritis.
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