Warning: Vitamin D supplements may do more cognitive harm than good

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vitaminDNo Link Between Vit­a­min D and Cog­ni­tion, Brain Pathol­o­gy (Med­scape):

“Enthu­si­asm for tak­ing vit­a­min D to pro­mote brain health has tak­en a knock after 2 stud­ies in the same pop­u­la­tion have found no asso­ci­a­tion between vit­a­min D lev­els and cog­ni­tion or cere­brovas­cu­lar pathology…“Our results damp­en the enthu­si­asm for vit­a­min D being a panacea for brain health. We are urg­ing cau­tion before every­one gets car­ried away with tak­ing vit­a­min D, and we can­not rec­om­mend at this time that peo­ple take it to pro­tect against cog­ni­tive decline,” Erin Michos, MD, Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine, Bal­ti­more, who was an author on both stud­ies, com­ment­ed to Med­scape Med­ical News.

“It is not com­plete­ly benign,” she added. “It can cause side effects at high dos­es. It is not a good idea to take sup­ple­ments if you don’t need to.”

Study: Vit­a­min D and Sub­clin­i­cal Cere­brovas­cu­lar Dis­ease (JAMA Neu­rol­o­gy). From the abstract:

  • Impor­tance: Vit­a­min D defi­cien­cy has been asso­ci­at­ed with hyper­ten­sion, dia­betes mel­li­tus, and inci­dent stroke. Lit­tle is known about the asso­ci­a­tion between vit­a­min D and sub­clin­i­cal cere­brovas­cu­lar disease.
  • Con­clu­sions and Rel­e­vance: A sin­gle mea­sure of 25(OH)D was not cross-sec­tion­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with WMH grade or preva­lent sub­clin­i­cal infarcts and was not prospec­tive­ly asso­ci­at­ed with WMH pro­gres­sion or sub­clin­i­cal brain infarcts seen on ser­i­al cere­bral MRIs obtained approx­i­mate­ly 10 years apart. These find­ings do not sup­port opti­miz­ing vit­a­min D lev­els for brain health.