Could vitamin D reduce obesity-associated inflammation? Observational and Mendelian randomization study.

What Was Tested

The paper reports a study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, published as an observational study.

The researchers aimed to assess the associations between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D], BMI, and 16 inflammatory biomarkers, and to assess the role of vitamin D as a potential mediator in the association between higher BMI and inflammation.

Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 (NFBC1966) 31-y data on 3586 individuals were analyzed to examine the observational associations between BMI, 25(OH)D, and 16 inflammatory biomarkers.

Multivariable regression analyses and 2-sample regression-based Mendelian randomization (MR) mediation analysis were performed to assess any role of vitamin D in mediating a causal effect of BMI on inflammatory biomarkers [soluble intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (sICAM-1), high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), and α1-acid glycoprotein (AGP)] for which observational associations were detected.

Who Took Part

According to the abstract, 3586 individuals were involved.

PubMed tags the participants as both men and women.

Findings were triangulated with a literature review of vitamin D supplementation trials.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

For MR, genome-wide association study summary results ranging from 5163 to 806,834 individuals were used for biomarkers, 25(OH)D, and BMI.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Body Mass Index, C-Reactive Protein, Cohort Studies, Genome-Wide Association Study, Intercellular Adhesion Molecule-1, Mendelian Randomization Analysis and Obesity.

Author keywords: 25(OH)D, BMI, inflammation, mediation and vitamin D.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc in 3586 individuals.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 7 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2020 (The American journal of clinical nutrition), a journal based in United States.

More context: the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc compound page, all human trials.