A new comprehensive meta-analysis suggests that vitamin D supplementation may relieve symptoms of depression in adults with depression.
The analysis, conducted by an international team of researchers, includes dozens of studies from around the world.
Symptoms of depression cause a significant burden worldwide. The therapeutic efficacy of current antidepressants is often insufficient. For this reason, scientists are looking for other ways to relieve symptoms of depression, for example, from research on food.
Vitamin D is thought to regulate central nervous system functions whose disorders have been linked to depression. Additionally, cross-sectional studies have noted an association between depressive symptoms and vitamin D deficiency. However, previous meta-analyses about the effects of vitamin D supplementation on depression have been inconclusive. In the current meta-analysis, the results of several different studies are combined and analyzed statistically.
This new analysis of the association of vitamin D supplementation with depression is the largest published to date, including results from 41 studies from around the world.
These studies investigated the efficacy of vitamin D in relieving depressive symptoms in adults through randomized, placebo-controlled trials in different population groups.
The studies included those in depressed patients, the general population, and people with various physical conditions.
The results of a meta-analysis show that vitamin D supplementation is more effective than a placebo in relieving symptoms of depression in people with it. There were significant differences in the doses of vitamin D used, but the vitamin D supplement was usually 50-100 mcg per day.
“Despite the broad scope of this meta-analysis, the certainty of the evidence remains low due to the heterogeneity of the population studied and because of the risk of bias associated with a large number of studies,” says lead author Thomas Mikkola, a researcher at the Institute of Clinical Medicine at the University of Eastern Finland.
Mikola concludes, “These findings will encourage new, high-level clinical trials in depressed patients in order to shed more light on the potential role of vitamin D supplementation in the treatment of depression.”
The current meta-analysis was published in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition and was carried out by an international collaboration between Finnish, Australian and American researchers.
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