The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Institute of Health announced in a specialized academic journal the results of a study showing that sufficient blood vitamin D levels reduce the risk of death.
Vitamin D is mainly synthesized in the skin through exposure to sunlight, but can also be consumed through foods such as fish, mushrooms, and vitamin D-fortified dairy products.
It is a fat-soluble vitamin that plays an important role in bone growth and remodeling by regulating calcium metabolism in the body. It is related to not only musculoskeletal diseases but also cancer and cardiovascular diseases, and its association with risk of death has also been reported.
The National Institute of Health analyzed the relationship between blood vitamin D concentrations and mortality risk in 18,797 men and women aged 40 or older in Korea using approximately 14 years of follow-up data from the rural cohort of the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study (KoGES).
In this study, blood vitamin D concentrations were classified into four groups: less than 30 nmol/L (nanomoles per liter), 30-<50 nmol/L, 50-<75 nmol/L, and ≥75 nmol/L, and the risk of death was compared between the group with the lowest concentration level of less than 30 nmol/L and the remaining groups.
There is no unified standard for the appropriate level of vitamin D in the blood, but in foreign countries, it is generally classified as deficiency or severe deficiency if it is lower than 30 nmol/L.
The median (the value located at the center when the data are arranged in order of size) of the blood vitamin D concentration of all study subjects was 55.8 nmol/L (interquartile range: 40.8-71.8 nmol/L).
The analysis results showed that the overall mortality risk was reduced by 18%, 26%, and 31% in the groups with blood vitamin D concentrations of 30-<50 nmol/L, 50-<75 nmol/L, and 75 nmol/L or higher, respectively, compared to the group with the lowest blood vitamin D concentration of less than 30 nmol/L.
In particular, the risk of death from cancer was 37% and 45% lower in the 50-〈75 nmol/L and 75 nmol/L or higher groups, respectively. However, in this study, there was no significant difference in the risk of death from cardiovascular disease.
The analysis of the overall risk of death as blood vitamin D levels increased by 1 nmol/L showed that the risk of death decreased significantly from low concentrations to around 50-60 nmol/L, and the degree of decrease became gradual thereafter.
The results of this study were published in the international academic journal in the field of nutrition and dietetics, ‘Clinical Nutrition’, Volume 43, Number 9. (Paper title: Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality: A 14-year prospective cohort study)
Park Hyun-young, director of the National Institute of Health, said, “In order to lower the risk of death, it is necessary to manage vitamin D deficiency,” and “Additional research is needed to identify the appropriate level of vitamin D concentration for Koreans to prevent disease and reduce the risk of death.”
Reporter Song Chi-hoon, Donga.com [email protected]
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2024-09-11 05:04:32