This subject along with many others are quite common. We will do our best to answer this and many other similar questions in this article which should ease your mind regarding this subject.
What Does Vitamin D Do For Our Bodies And Our Health?
Vitamin D plays many important roles in the body and helps you maintain healthy bones, joints, and teeth, as well as a well-functioning immune system. “Vitamin D aids in the absorption of calcium in the body to promote bone growth,” notes Erin Palinski-Wade, RD, CDE, author of The 2-Day Diabetes Diet: Just 2 Days a Week and Dodge Type 2 Diabetes, who is in private practice in Franklin, New Jersey. “Some observational studies suggest vitamin D may also play a role in the prevention of certain diseases and disorders, such as diabetes.”
The sunshine vitamin may also help keep your ticker healthy: A review published in June 2018 in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that vitamin D supplementation may help lower LDL (bad) cholesterol levels.
In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes people with diabetes are two times more likely to die from heart disease than people without diabetes. Related: The Relationship Between Heart Disease and Type 2 Diabetes.
Abstract
Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to onset and progression of DM.
Although in patients with DM the relationship between vitamin D and insulin secretion, insulin resistance, and β-cell dysfunction are pointed out, evidence regarding vitamin D levels and DM is contradictory, and well controlled studies are needed. There is increasing evidence that vitamin D deficiency may be a risk factor for DM and CKD; however, it remains uncertain whether vitamin D deficiency also predisposes to death from DM and CKD. Although at this time, supplementation with vitamin D has not been shown to improve glycemic control or prevent incident DM, clinical trials with sufficient sample size, study periods, and optimal doses of vitamin D supplementation are still needed.
Keywords: Vitamin D, Vitamin D deficiency, Diabetes mellitus, Chronic kidney disease, Cardiovascular disease
Core tip: Vitamin D plays an essential role in diabetes mellitus (DM) and chronic kidney disease (CKD). There is increasing evidence that vitamin D deficiency may be a risk factor for DM and CKD.
Vitamin D And Diabetes: What’S The Link?
Low levels of vitamin D is a prevalent issue in people with and without diabetes across the globe.
Research has repeatedly found a clear association between low vitamin D levels in patients with insulin resistance and a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes, as shown in this 2011 study from Canada. “The other thing it appears to help with is allowing the beta cells in the pancreas that make insulin to stay healthy and functional,” added Smith, who treats patients with all types of diabetes across the globe at Integrated Diabetes Services. Gradual beta cell dysfunction is the biggest culprit of type 2 diabetes for approximately 60 percent of people diagnosed, according to a 2016 study published in Diabetes Care .
How Vitamin D Affects Insulin Secretion
Vitamin D can positively impact insulin secretion in several ways, explained Smith, citing research from the National Institute of Health . Vitamin D enters the beta cell and interacts with several types of receptors, which bind together and essentially activate the insulin gene, increasing the synthesis of insulin. Vitamin D also plays a critical role in regulating the body’s use of calcium.
How vitamin D could improve insulin sensitivity Through the same receptors associated with vitamin D’s impact on insulin secretion, vitamin D stimulates receptors that affect insulin sensitivity. Through a complicated physiological process, the interaction and binding with these receptors actually increase the number of total insulin receptors present in the body. Without calcium, this cannot happen.
And without vitamin D, there is no calcium.