Nutritional Vitamin D improves vascular function: Study

Nutritional Vitamin D supplementation improves the vascular function and reduces inflammation in early stage of chronic kidney disease, a study has revealed.

It stated that no other medicine has proper effect in the inflammation of kidneys or any other problems related to it.

In a randomised controlled trial under direct supervision of the researchers, two ground were created of 60 patients each.

One group was given two doses of 300,000 units of Vitamin D for eight weeks while the patients in the other group were given matching placebo.

A placebo is anything that seems to be a "real" medical treatment -- but isn't. It could be a pill, a shot, or some other type of "fake" treatment.

The study was conducted by researchers from the George Institute for Global Health, New Delhi and the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh.

It was presented at the American Society of Nephrology Kidney Week 2015 (November 3-8) in San Diego.

Several parameters of vascular function and biomarkers to measure status of inflammatory and immune activation were studied at baseline and after 16 weeks, Vitamin D levels increased in patients in the first treatment group whereas there was no change in the second group.

"About 70 percent of patients receiving Vitamin D demonstrated significant improvement in their vascular functions and improvement in biomarkers indicating reduction in the level of inflammatory and immune activation," said Vivekanand Jha, the executive director of the George Institute for Global Health who led the study.

Jha said that in the placebo arm only five percent patients showed improved vascular function and there was no change in the inflammatory and immune markers.

Vivek Kumar, nephrologist at PGIMER and the first author of the study, said: "Vitamin D deficiency is common in patients with chronic kidney disease. Our study shows that simply identifying and correcting this abnormality has the potential to improve the outcomes in these patients."

Jha added: "About one in 10 people suffer from chronic kidney disease around the world. Most of these patients are destined to develop premature cardiovascular disease, hence mitigation of this risk is an important therapeutic goal."