Vitamin D supplementation improves neuropathy in prediabetics: Study

Egypt: Correction of vitamin D insufficiency and hypovitaminosis D in prediabetics with peripheral neuropathy (PN) improves glycemic indices and severity, says an article published in F1000 Research on 16th August 2021.

Vitamin D insufficiency is more common in diabetics with distal symmetrical polyneuropathy. Unfortunately, there is a scarcity of evidence on prediabetic people with peripheral neuropathy. As a result, Mohamed Reda Halawa and colleagues set out to investigate the relationship between vitamin D insufficiency and PN severity, as well as the effect of vitamin D treatment on PN in prediabetics.

A case-control research was undertaken with 89 prediabetic patients with PN along with a control group of prediabetics without PN recruited from the National Institute of Diabetes and Endocrinology's outpatient department in Cairo, Egypt. Clinical examination and the Douleur Neuropathique 4 diagnostic questionnaire were used to evaluate all individuals for PN (DN4). The Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire was used to measure neuropathic severity in Group A (those with PN) (SF-MPQ). Furthermore, both groups had their 25-hydroxyvitamin D, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), ionized calcium, parathyroid hormone (PTH), phosphorus, 2-hour post 75g glucose (2h-PPBG), fasting blood glucose (FBG), and lipid profiles examined. For three months, prediabetic individuals with PN were given vitamin D3 200.000 IU IM. Clinical evaluation, DN4, SF-MPQ, and all laboratory measurements were repeated three months later.

The findings of these results were as follow:

1. Vitamin D had no effect on the severity of PN patients.

2. Vitamin D administration resulted in significantly high improvement in glycemic indices.

3. Interestingly, the neuropathy score and severity before and after vitamin D treatment were (6.41.6 and 28.37.2, respectively) and (2.50.9 and 176.3, respectively).

In conclusion, this study discovered that vitamin D supplementation improves neuropathy in prediabetics with peripheral neuropathy and hypovitaminosis D, as measured by McGill and DN4 scores, as well as glycemic parameters such as HbA1c, FBG, and 2h-PPG.

Reference: 

Reda Halawa, M., Zaky Ahmed, I., Fawzy Abouelezz, N., Roushdy Mohamed, N., Hany Abdelaziz Khalil, N., & Mahmoud Ali Hendawy, L. (2021). The impact of vitamin D supplementation on peripheral neuropathy in a sample of Egyptian prediabetic individuals. F1000Research, 10, 817. https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.55221.2

Keywords: peripheral neuropathy, Vitamin D, polyneuropathy, diabetes mellitus, glycated hemoglobin, lipid profile, F1000 Research,        hypervitaminosis, vitamin deficiency, supplementation, prediabetes