No evidence vitamin D supplements improve bone health, major analysis finds | News

Vitamin D supplements for fractures, or a better outcome.

The meta-analysis of 81 randomized trials, published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology (online, 4 October 2018), also found no differences in the effects of higher versus lower doses of vitamin D.

The authors concluded that there was little justification to use vitamin D supplements to maintain or improve musculoskeletal health. The exception was to prevent rare conditions such as rickets and osteomalacia in high-risk groups, which can occur in the presence of vitamin D deficiency after prolonged lack of exposure to sunshine.

Vitamin D supplements have traditionally been recommended for the treatment of osteoporosis. The Department of Health and Social Care currently recommends that everyone should consider taking vitamin A supplementation during the winter months, based on the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition given in 2016.

The authors said clinical guidelines that continue to recommend vitamin D supplementation for bone health should be changed to reflect the best available evidence.

Lead author Mark J Bolland from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, said that the last major review of evidence in 2014, "more than doubling the evidence base available" .

In the study, the authors pooled data from 81 randomized controlled trials and found there was reliable evidence that vitamin D does not reduce total fractures, hip fractures or falls by 15% – a clinically meaningful threshold.

"Our meta-analysis finds that vitamin D does not prevent fractures, either at high or low dose. Clinical guidelines should be changed to reflect these findings, "said Bolland.

"On the strength of existing evidence, we believe there is little justification for more trials of vitamin D supplements looking at musculoskeletal outcomes."

Quote: The Pharmaceutical Journal, online, online |

DOI: 10.1211 / PJ.2018.20205553