Making sense of vitamin D concentrations

“Given this amazing complexity of the vitamin D pathways and the great variation in the type of parameters monitored by various studies, it is not surprising that general consensus regarding the importance of vitamin D cannot be found.”

Hardly a day passes without a scientific or news article touting the benefits of vitamin D supplementation, only to be followed shortly by articles cautioning about the lack of benefits or even the severe adverse effects of vitamin D compounds. The most discussed articles are those investigating the link between vitamin D status and diseases such as dementia [1,2] or cancer [3,4], although articles about the influence of vitamin D on infections, asthma, anorexia, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and more than a hundred other outcomes [5] are just as common. The main recognized function of vitamin D is to maintain appropriate levels of calcium and phosphate for bone mineralization, muscle contraction, nerve conduction and general cellular function [6]. Nevertheless, recent evidence has shown that the active metabolites of vitamin D may also be able to regulate different cellular processes associated with carcinogenesis [7]. Furthermore, maintaining an optimal level of vitamin D may help in preventing the risk of obesity, mental disease, depression and asthma [1,8,9].

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