Vitamin D may help keep blood sugar under control

Almaty. February 24. Kazakhstan Today - A new study has found vitamin D may help people with diabetes to regulate their blood sugar, Kazakhstan Today reports.

Drinking yogurt with extra vitamin D may help people with diabetes regulate their blood sugar, a study from Iran finds, Reuters reported.

In the trial, 90 adults with diabetes were divided into three groups, all given daily yogurt drinks: one group received plain yogurt, one got yogurt with extra vitamin D, and one was given yogurt with extra vitamin D and calcium.

At the end of 12 weeks, "we found a relatively remarkable improvement" in blood sugar levels in the groups that got extra vitamin D, compared to the plain yogurt group, co-author Tirang Neyestani, associate professor at National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute in Iran, told Reuters Health in an e-mail.

It's noteworthy that this study does, and that it suggests vitamin D has a positive effect on people with type 2 diabetes, said Dr. Anastassios Pittas, assistant professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston. He was not part of the study.

In type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease, the body has trouble using insulin to process glucose from foods, resulting in excessive levels of the sugar in the bloodstream. Vitamin D is thought to help regulate the body's sensitivity to insulin and possibly insulin production by the pancreas.

It's important to note that the vitamin D was given in yogurt, instead of as a supplement, Pittas said, and taking the vitamin alone might produce different results.

Yogurt contains probiotics, the good bugs that help us digest food, and "there is some evidence that these may also be important in diabetes," Pittas explained.

The study, published in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, was funded by the National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute in Iran. The yogurt was donated by the Dairy Industries of Iran, and was a substitute for the equivalent amount of dairy in the participants' normal diet.

People with type 2 diabetes should follow the current Institute of Medicine vitamin D recommendation of about 600 IU a day, Pittas said.

The study is "a little bit of a 'too good to be true' observation," he added, but it does "provide additional evidence for more, longer-term studies. I would not say that we should all be eating yogurt with extra vitamin D yet."

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