Vitamin D dubbed most popular supplement: 3/1

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Vitamin D dubbed most popular supplement

There were 3,600 publications with vitamin D in the title or abstract in 2012, bringing the total number of vitamin D publications to 33,800, according to PubMed.gov. As a result, vitamin D was named the most popular vitamin in 2012.

MUSC's South Carolina Clinical & Translational Research Institute (SCTR) funded two studies, and each was chosen as a top-16 vitamin D PubMed.gov paper for 2012 from 60 candidate papers. MUSC's studies were conducted in SCTR's Research Nexus, a state-of-the-art research infrastructure for clinical investigators on the MUSC campus.

High doses during pregnancy
A topic that generated considerable interest this year was the role of vitamin D during pregnancy.

In a pair of papers, researchers from MUSC discussed the findings and implications of their randomized trial of vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy [Hollis et al., 2012; Wagner et al., 2012]. More than 300 women enrolled in the study and were assigned to take supplements containing 400, 2,000, or 4,000 IU/d vitamin D3 or a placebo.

The study found that it took 4,000 IU/d to reach a nearly optimal level of vitamin D. Those taking the higher doses had reduced risk of primary cesarean section delivery and pre-eclampsia.

"It really has been a collective effort, and MUSC and SCTR should see this as an example of collaborative research at its best," said Carol Wagner, M.D., MUSC professor of pediatrics and neonatology, on the study's findings. "We would never have been able to conduct these studies without the support of SCTR's research infrastructure. We will continue to benefit from such support and collaboration."

Reduced risk of prostate cancer
One of the important and well-documented effects of vitamin D is the reduced risk of cancer and increased survival rate after cancer diagnosis.

Another cancer paper reported the results of supplementation with 4,000 IU/d vitamin D3 of those with low-grade biopsy-assayed prostate cancer [Marshall DT et al., 2012]. Forty-four patients successfully completed the one-year study.

Twenty-four of the subjects (55 percent) showed a decrease in the amount of cancer. Five subjects (11 percent) showed no change and 15 subjects (34 percent) showed an increase. The results show that optimal vitamin D supplementation appears to be useful for treating those with cancer.

"We've had an encouraging response from the recently published open-label study, including making the top 16 vitamin D papers of 2012," said Sebastiano Gattoni-Celli, M.D., MUSC professor of radiation oncology and health research scientist, Ralph H. Johnson Veterans Affairs Medical Center. "We were also able to secure federal funds for a much larger randomized study to confirm the benefits of vitamin D supplementation for subjects with low-risk prostate cancer."

Friday, March 1, 2013

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