18 Apr Severe Obesity Linked to Vitamin D Deficiency
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Tomás Ahern MB, BCh, BAO
St Columcille’s Hospital and St Vincent’s University Hospital
Dublin, Ireland
MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of the study?
Answer: More than 40% of severely obese people, who make up 6.5% of American adults, are at risk of vitamin D deficiency.
Severely obese people with low vitamin D levels are less active and have worse physical function than those with healthy vitamin D levels. Other investigators have found that poor physical function predicts premature death – whether this is the case in people with severe obesity remains to be determined.
MedicalResearch.com: Were any of the findings unexpected?
Answer: Yes. Other studies, of people without severe obesity, have shown that people with low vitamin D levels have higher blood sugar levels and are more likely to have diabetes. We did not find such a relationship in this study of people with severe obesity.
MedicalResearch.com: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Answer: Determining serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in severely obese people is appropriate because low levels are common and associated with poor physical activity and poor physical function.
The finding of a low 25-hydroxyvitamin D level should be a portal to interventions that improve physical function and should lead to consideration of vitamin D supplementation. Vitamin D supplementation can take the form of spending more time outdoors or chewing calcium and vitamin D tablets daily.
MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Dr. Ahern: We feel that this study generates the imperative to determine the effects of vitamin D supplementation in severely obese people at risk of vitamin D deficiency. We feel it likely that vitamin D supplementation in this group will result in improvement in physical function and possibly improvement in other markers of increased mortality.
Citation:
Association between Vitamin D Status and Physical Function in the Severely Obese
Last Updated on April 18, 2014 by Marie Benz MD FAAD