Can Vitamin D Cut Diabetes Risk in Half?

Researchers at Tufts analyzed 19 studies and found that people with a daily intake of vitamin D of more than 500 IU had a 13% lower risk of type 2 diabetes than people with a 200 IU daily intake. When they looked at blood levels, they found those with the highest blood levels (more than 25 ng/ml) were 43% less likely to develop diabetes.

In a similar analysis of 23 studies, published in the August, 2011 issue of the British Journal of Nutrition, Australian researchers found that those with the highest blood levels of vitamin D were 50% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those with the lowest levels.

References

"Vitamin D and type 2 diabetes: a systematic review." Eur J Clin Nutr. 2011 Jul 6. doi: 10.1038/ejcn.2011.118. [Epub ahead of print] Mitri J, Muraru MD, Pittas AG. Source: Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA.

"Diabetes prevalence is associated with serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D and 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D in US middle-aged Caucasian men and women: a cross-sectional analysis within the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial." Br J Nutr. 2011 Aug;106(3):339-44. Epub 2011 May 17. Brock KE, Huang WY, Fraser DR, Ke L, Tseng M, Mason RS, Stolzenberg-Solomon RZ, Michal Freedman D, Ahn J, Peters U, McCarty C, Hollis BW, Ziegler RG, Purdue MP, Graubard BI.