Microbes in our gut The many bacteria, viruses, and other microbes that live in our digestive tracts play important roles in our health and disease risk.
And researchers and collaborators at the University of California San Diego recently showed in older men that the composition of a person’s gut microbiome is associated with levels of Vitamin D Active, a hormone important for bone health and immunity.–
The study, published in Nature Communications, reveals a new understanding of vitamin D and how it is usually measured.
Vitamin D can take many different forms, but standard blood tests reveal only one, which is an inactive precursor that the body can store. To use vitamin D, the body must metabolize the precursor in an active form.
“We were surprised that the diversity of the microbiome, the diverse types of bacteria in a person’s gut – is closely related to active vitamin D.” said senior researcher Deborah Cadeau, director of the Osteoporosis Clinic at the University of California.
Multiple studies have indicated that people with low levels of vitamin D are more likely to develop cancer, heart disease, and infections. COVID-19 The worst and other illnesses, however, the largest randomized clinical trial to date, with more than 25,000 adults, concluded that taking vitamin D supplements had no effect on health outcomes, including heart disease, cancer or even bone health.–
“Our study indicates that the reason for this is that these studies only measure the initial form of vitamin D, not the active hormone,” said Cadeau, who is also a professor at UCSD and Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health. Vitamin D and its breakdown are better indicators of underlying health issues, and who may respond better to vitamin D supplementation.
In addition to discovering a link between active vitamin D and the overall diversity of the microbiome, the researchers also noted that 12 specific types of bacteria appeared more often in the gut microbiomes of men who had a lot of active vitamin D, a beneficial fatty acid that helps maintain the health of the gut lining.
Since they live in different regions of the United States, the men in the study are exposed to different amounts of sunlight, which is a source of vitamin D. As expected, the men who lived in San Diego, California got the most sunlight, and they also had the most Most precursors Vitamin D.-
“It seems that it doesn’t matter how much vitamin D you get through sunlight or supplements, nor how much your body can store,” Cadeau said. “It’s important how well your body can metabolize that into active vitamin D, and perhaps this is what clinical trials need to measure in order to get a more accurate picture of the vitamin’s role in health.”
“We often find in medicine that more is not necessarily better,” Thomas added. “So in this case, it may not be about how much vitamin D you take in, but how you encourage your body to use it.”
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