If you’re a dialysis patient with type 2 diabetes, vitamin D supplements can reduce your risk of wellness complications. This is according to researchers from the University of Texas Health Science Centre, who found that vitamin D supplementation lessened the risk of complications with vascular access among type 2 diabetic dialysis patients.
The results of the study, which Karina Vasquez, MD, and colleagues reported on during a poster session at the National Kidney Foundation meeting in Orlando, showed that vitamin D2 treatment (ergocalciferol) was linked to a significantly reduced risk of vascular access dysfunction in this population. When you have diabetes, your wellbeing is already at risk for worse vascular outcomes, and so vascular access for dialysis can be particularly problematic.
Venous neointimal hyperplasia near the graft or fistula is often responsible for causing these complications. However, the smooth muscle cells or precursors thereof, in the neointimal lesion have an enzyme that converts 25 hydroxyvitamin D (vitamin D2) to its active metabolite, 1,25 dihydroxyvitamin D (vitamin D3). This is an important feature, as it may help vitamin D supplementation to suppress proliferation of your vascular cell smooth muscle. Vasquez explained, ‘If there is a property that can affect problems with neointimal hyperplasia, and vitamin D plays a role in that, we can probably see a change.’
For the study, the researchers examined data from an electronic health record that spanned several dialysis centres in San Antonio. Of the 256 dialysis patients who were treated with the vitamin D2 supplement, 155 had type 2 diabetes and were, on the whole, older and more likely to have coronary artery disease, obesity, and vitamin D deficiency. Contrary to many prior studies, the researchers found that diabetes wasn’t associated with an increased risk for venous-arterial dysfunction, but taking vitamin D2 was associated with a significant reduction in the risk of vascular access dysfunction.
According to Tamim Naber, MD, a nephrologist at MedAmerica Group in Ventnor, N.J., who was not involved in the study, there are even more benefits to treating diabetic patients with vitamin D, such as improvements in heart disease, as well as reducing vascular access dysfunction risk. However, he warned that there needs to be ‘more randomized clinical trials for greater accuracy,’ and doctors who treat their patients with more vitamin D should watch out ‘for changes in phosphorus and calcium, since treatment with vitamin D can increase phosphorus and calcium.’
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