A new study published in Diabetes Care suggests that higher serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) concentrations could be associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D).
The study began by analyzing the association between vitamin D concentrations and type 2 diabetes in more than 350,000 healthy participants derived from the U.K. Biobank. The study also sought to identify if any association between the two was modified by sleep behaviors.
Following up after an average of 8 years, researchers uncovered nearly 7,000 cases of type 2 diabetes. From those diagnosed cases, researchers determined that higher vitamin D concentrations were associated with a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Moreover, sleep behaviors also played a role in the risk of type 2 diabetes. According to researchers, the participants with healthier sleep patterns showed an impact on the association between higher vitamin D concentrations and type 2 diabetes.
“The lower risk of T2D associated with high 25OHD was more prominent among participants with no frequent daytime sleepiness versus those with excessive daytime sleepiness,” co-authors stated in a news release.
“Our findings, if confirmed by replications, may have implications for the development of T2D prevention strategies targeting improvement of vitamin D supplementation among people with sleep disorders, especially daytime sleepiness.”
The study was authored by Mengying Wang of Peking University in Beijing, China, along with Tao Zhou, Xiang Li, Hao Ma, Zhaoxia Liang, Vivian A. Fonseca, Yoriko Heianza, and Lu Qi.
