New research presented at this year’s Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Barcelona, Spain (16-20 Sept) reveals that vitamin D deficiency is strongly linked to increased mortality, especially in younger and middle-aged people, and is particularly associated with diabetes-related deaths.
The research was conducted by Dr Rodrig Marculescu and colleagues at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria. It analysed the effects of low 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25D) (referred to as vitamin D) levels in the blood on overall and cause-specific mortality in a large study cohort covering all age groups, and taken from a population with minimal vitamin D supplementation in old age.
Vitamin D deficiency is a widely prevalent and easily correctable risk factor for early death, and evidence for its link to mortality comes from numerous studies and clinical trials. The majority of this research to date has however come from looking at older populations, and the authors believe that many of the largest scale studies may have been affected by increased rates of vitamin D supplementation in old age. They also note: “Cause-specific mortalities and the impact of age on the association of vitamin D with the risk of death have not yet been reported in detail.”…
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-09/d-nsr091819.php