{"id":45450,"date":"2014-09-30T20:22:35","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T00:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/?post_type=news&#038;p=45450"},"modified":"2014-09-30T20:22:35","modified_gmt":"2014-10-01T00:22:35","slug":"genetic-analysis-fails-to-support-role-for-vitamin-d-to-prevent-diabetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/2014\/09\/30\/genetic-analysis-fails-to-support-role-for-vitamin-d-to-prevent-diabetes\/","title":{"rendered":"Genetic Analysis Fails to Support Vitamin D to Prevent Diabetes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A vitamin D pill can&#8217;t substitute for a healthy diet and sunshine, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/landia\/article\/PIIS2213-8587(14)70184-6\/abstract\">a new genetic study published in <\/a><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/landia\/article\/PIIS2213-8587(14)70184-6\/abstract\">The Lancet Diabetes &amp; Endocrinology<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>suggests<em>.\u00a0<\/em>In recent years many people have been seduced by observational studies that found low levels of vitamin D in people who developed type 2 diabetes. The new study instead suggests that the association is not causal, and that raising vitamin D by itself will not be helpful.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers in the U.K. performed a Mendelian Randomization study in more than 100,000 people\u00a0in which they examined the effect of four separate, single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on genes that have a known effect on vitamin D levels. Despite the significant effect of these genetic variations on circulating levels of vitamin D (25(OH)D), the researchers found no relationship between genetically determined levels of vitamin D and the risk for developing type 2 diabetes.<\/p>\n<p>Added to previous evidence, write the authors, the results &#8220;suggest that interventions to reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes by increasing concentrations of 25(OH)D are not currently justified.&#8221; Instead, they write, &#8220;our findings emphasize the need for investigation of the discrepancy between the observational evidence and the absence of causal evidence.&#8221; Two possible confounders are physical activity and adiposity, they add.<\/p>\n<p>Results of several long-term randomized trials will be needed to definitively prove that vitamin D supplements are not beneficial, say Brian Buijsse in an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thelancet.com\/journals\/landia\/article\/PIIS2213-8587%2814%2970202-5\/fulltext\">accompanying editorial<\/a>. He cautions that &#8220;Mendelian randomisation studies need careful interpretation,&#8221; but an analysis of previous trials &#8220;do not offer much hope that vitamin D supplementation can be used to prevent type 2 diabetes.&#8221; He concludes that &#8220;the sky is becoming rather clouded for vitamin D in the context of preventing type 2 diabetes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A vitamin D pill can&#8217;t substitute for a healthy diet and sunshine, a new genetic study published in The Lancet Diabetes &amp; Endocrinology\u00a0suggests.\u00a0In recent years many people have been seduced by observational studies that found low levels of vitamin D in people who developed type 2 diabetes. The new study instead suggests that the association [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[200,270,2385,808],"class_list":["post-45450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-prevention","tag-diabetes","tag-genetics","tag-mendelian-randomization","tag-vitamin-d"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45450\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}