I am happy to be able to announce to my readers that the National Institutes of Health are finally paying attention to vitamin D!.

The National Institutes of Health is funding a $20 million study which will be done through Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Dr JoAnne Manson and Dr Julie Buring, are the principal investigators. They will enroll 20,000 healthy older people in this study. Women over 65 in men over age 60 without a history of cancer or heart disease will be randomly assigned to four groups. Some of the groups will be taking vitamin D while others will not be taking vitamin D. I am very encouraged to see that the dose that they are giving the groups that will be taking vitamin D is 2000 international units. This is a high enough dose to be able to see some positive results.

 This study will begin in January and will last five years. Fortunately they are paying particular attention to African Americans who have a higher rate of certain types of cancer and diabetes and high blood pressure. 25% of the study participants will be African-American.  All of the patients will be followed over five years and relative rates of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and stroke will be followed.

Dr Manson was quoted as saying “"We’re hoping to see a result during the trial, that we won’t have to wait five years to find out if supplements help” and I hope she is right!  

My opinion of this study is that it is certainly an excellent start to looking at vitamin D and chronic degenerative diseases in our country. However, as those of you who have read my book will know, I think it will be much better to give a sufficient dose of vitamin D to keep the patient’s blood levels in the "normal" range. For me this would be over 40 ng/ml.  Overweight people for example would need a higher dose of vitamin D than a normal weight person. From my reading of the articles about this study, it does not appear that these variables will be considered.

Of note, they are also looking at the benefits of fish oil with or without vitamin D in this study.

My only concern is that the dose of 2000 IU per day may not be enough to raise people into the ideal or normal range and therefore the results of the study could end up showing no benefit from the vitamin D and the conclusion would be that vitamin D is of no benefit! I am disappointed to see that the website announcing the study (see link below) mentions nothing about a blood test even once for the participants!

In addition the study requires that the participants not take a significant quantity of vitamin D or fish oil themselves.

This will be a national study with patients from every state in the United States.

Here is the website where the study is announced: CLICK HERE

Here are two additional links to articles about this study.

ARTICLE 1

ARTICLE 2