Vitamin D
Vitamin D: The Study of the Year
French researchers reveal that Vitamin D deficiency impairs mitochondrial function and muscle mass, and that supplementation can reverse these effects.
Vitamin D
French researchers reveal that Vitamin D deficiency impairs mitochondrial function and muscle mass, and that supplementation can reverse these effects.
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Vitamin D is remarkably straightforward. In principle, anyway. From October to March our skin cannot produce Vitamin D [source no longer available]. Like many populations, Switzerland experiences significant Vitamin D deficiency during these months. The logical consequence should be to simply take it during this time to avoid becoming deficient, right? Yet in reality, plenty of people still manage to complicate even these simple relationships.
Yet study after study shows impressively how important this substance is for us. How can someone, as a responsible person, walk around for half a year practically deficient in Vitamin D and be convinced that's somehow fine? Extrapolated, that's half our lives. More or less...
So here comes the next sensational Vitamin D study [source no longer available], perhaps already the study of the year, with a message: it doesn't get more clear-cut than this. French scientists from Clermont-Ferrand (reminiscent of French classes back in school: «Arthur is a parrot» ;-) demonstrate impressively that Vitamin D essentially regulates the function of our mitochondria. Mitochondria stand for vital energy, drive, health, longevity—but above all, muscle function.
What did they do? You have to brace yourself for this:
The study establishes a connection between Vitamin D deficiency-induced muscle loss (sarcopenia) and the reduced energy in muscle cells caused by Vitamin D deficiency. After all, it's clear: if Vitamin D deficiency lowers the energy levels of muscle cells, the muscle will shrink. Simple relationships. Since Vitamin D deficiency in older people [source no longer available] has been associated with sarcopenia for years, it follows logically that this is facilitated by the drop in energy concentration in muscle cells caused by Vitamin D deficiency.
And indeed:
Vitamin D deficiency and mitochondrial muscle dysfunction are associated with sarcopenia in humans.
So say the authors. Accordingly, they supplemented their study with two additional components. They examined grip strength and muscle mass in older animals with Vitamin D deficiency and found that both parameters were reduced compared to animals without deficiency. And finally, the researchers gave older people Vitamin D 10,000 IU three times a week, which after six months was associated with «very significantly increased» appendicular muscle mass and grip strength in the Vitamin D group. To be precise, both parameters differed by a factor of 10.
This study also supports the hypothesis that Vitamin D supplementation could likely prevent not only sarcopenia but also sarcopenic obesity in Vitamin D-deficient individuals.
How much more evidence is really needed? It doesn't get more impressive or clearer than this.
Conversely, this modern research harks back to early findings dating back to the Nazi era, when German researchers described in 1940 in the Journal of Clinical Medicine the performance-enhancing effects of «sunlamps» and noted that this «could represent an unfair advantage»—essentially «doping». In the 1950s, Hettinger and colleagues confirmed in the International Journal of Applied Physiology that «trainability»—meaning the progress that athletes make—is more than twice as pronounced in late summer compared to the annual average. [source no longer available]
Late summer, then, precisely the period when Vitamin D levels are also highest. Coincidence? Hardly. For it becomes increasingly clear how important Vitamin D is for muscle function, and how dependent mitochondrial energy production is on adequate Vitamin D levels. Furthermore, Vitamin D regulates energy and fat metabolism in this way.
Of course, everyone can decide for themselves whether they want to walk around for half their life with impaired muscle function and energy depletion. Vitamin D: it doesn't get simpler than that.
