The Minnesota-based researchers recruited 38 overweight men and women and assigned them to a calorie-restricted diet, which provided 750 calories a day, fewer than their estimated total needs, for 11 weeks. Blood levels of vitamin D were measured before and after the 11-week period.
On an average, study results showed that most participants had insufficient vitamin D levels pre-diet. Furthermore, the study findings suggested that for every increase of 1 ng/mL in level of 25-hydroxycholecalciferol – a measure of vitamin D status – subjects ended up losing almost 0.2 kg more on their calorie-restricted diet and for each additional 1-ng/mL increase in the active form of vitamin D (1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol), subjects lost 0.107 kg more.
Whether vitamin D deficiency causes obesity or if obesity causes vitamin D deficiency is still unclear to the researchers. Nevertheless, a clear connection between the two has been established. Says the study’s lead author, Shalamar Sibley, MD, from the University of Minnesota, “Although our results suggest the possibility that the addition of vitamin D to a reduced-calorie diet will lead to better weight loss, our findings need to be followed up by the right kind of controlled clinical trial to determine if there is a role for vitamin D supplementation in helping people lose weight when they attempt to cut back on what they eat.”
The Co-relation Between Vitamin D, Calcium And Obesity
Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to many illnesses including cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Vitamin D and calcium work in synergy to increase assimilation of food and regulate blood sugar levels. In the absence of vitamin D, calcium causes an increase in production of an enzyme ‘synthase’ that converts calories to fat, thereby causing obesity. Calcium deficiency can cause synthase production to increase by up to 500 percent, explaining the correlation between low levels of vitamin D and obesity.
Although current guidelines suggest daily intake somewhere between 400 and 600 IU, recent research suggests that getting between 4,000 and 10,000 IU a day will have a much more therapeutic effect, boosting health and fending off disease.
Written by Snigdha Taduri for Biomed-Me