Taking vitamin D3 supplements does not reduce the occurrence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) events or invasive cancer in older adults, according to new data published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Researchers tracked data from 2,495 male participants with no prior history of CVD or cancer. The group included men 60 years old and older and post-menopausal women 65 years old and older. Fifty-seven percent of patients were men, and the mean patient age was 68.2 years old.
Patients either took a placebo, 1,600 IU/day of vitamin D3 or 3,200 IU/day of vitamin D3.
During a mean follow-up period of 4.3 years, the rate of CVD events was 4.9% for the placebo arm, 5% for the 1,600 IU/day arm and 4.3% in the 3,200 IU/day arm
Invasive cancer, meanwhile, was diagnosed in 4.9% of patients in the placebo group, 5.8% of patients in the 1,600 IU/day arm, and 4.8% of patients in the 3,200 IU/day arm.
There were no meaningful differences in total mortality between groups.
"Vitamin D3 supplementation with 1600 or 3200 IU/day for five years did not reduce the incidence of major CVD events, any invasive cancer or mortality among generally healthy and mostly vitamin D sufficient older adults in Finland,” wrote lead author Jyrki K Virtanen, PhD, with the University of Eastern Finland, and colleagues.
The authors did note that most patients in the analysis started off with normal vitamin D levels. Perhaps the changes would be greater, they wondered, if all participants had started off with low vitamin D levels.
"Future vitamin D supplementation trials should focus on recruiting participants with low vitamin D status," they wrote.
Read the full study here.