Although the study was unable to prove that high serum levels of vitamin D can prevent diabetes, the researchers from Seoul National University College of Medicine and Seoul National University Bundang Hospital in Seongnam, Korea, established an association between high serum vitamin D levels and a reduced risk of the disease. Led by S Lim, the researchers examined 1,080 non-diabetic Koreans with an average age of 50 years, who has one or more wellness risk factors for type 2 diabetes. These include obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and family history of the disease.
Men and women who were deficient in vitamin D (with 11-19.9 ng/mL of 25(OH)D) were twice as likely to develop diabetes as those who had greater than 20 ng/mL of 25 (OH)D. Further, those who had lower than 10 ng/mL of vitamin D had triple the risk of the condition compared to those who had high serum levels of the vitamin. It is likely that vitamin D theoretically plays a role in diabetes risk, as the researchers established this association after adjusting for risk factors, such as age, gender, blood pressure, lifestyle, family history, season variations, parathyroid hormone, and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein.
Moreover, the researchers found that the association will still present independent of body mass index (BMI), HOMA2-IR and IGI, which led them to conclude, ‘The current prospective study suggests that vitamin D metabolism may play a role in T2D (type 2 diabetes) pathogenesis independently of known risk factors.’ This is not the first time that vitamin D, which you obtain through sunlight on your skin, has been linked to disease. Recent research has suggested that a deficiency in the vitamin can also lead to over 100 different health problems, including cancer, hypertension, infections, heart disease, and depression.