Vitamin D Supplementation has no effect on Cognition of elderly

A new study by Hai Pham and team showed that monthly basis bolus doses of vitamin D supplementation had no effect on cognitive performance in older persons. The findings of this study were published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Observational studies have established a relationship between low blood 25-hydroxyvitamin D content and an increased risk of cognitive impairment. Randomized controlled studies have shown inconsistent results, and few have been undertaken in the general population. As a result, this study was carried out in order to evaluate the aforementioned assertions.

The D-Health Study, a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled experiment, included 21,315 community-dwelling Australians aged 60 to 84 years. During 5 years, the intervention consisted of monthly oral dosages of 60,000 international units of vitamin D or a placebo. The Telephone Interview for Cognitive Status (TICS) was used to measure cognitive function in a randomly selected group of 70-year-old volunteers 2 and 5 years following randomization. The primary goal of this study was the TICS score; the secondary result was the proportion of patients with cognitive impairment (defined as a TICS score of 25). Mixed models were used to assess the data (linear and logistic).

The key findings of this study were:

1. In year 2, 3887 people were questioned, and in year 5, 3614 people were interviewed.

2. During these times, the mean TICS score was 32.3 and 32.2, respectively.

3. Vitamin D supplementation had no effect on cognitive function as indicated by TICS score (mean difference 0.04; 95% CI 0.14 to 0.23) or risk of cognitive impairment.

It is unknown if dosing unscreened persons with vitamin D3 improves cognitive performance in the elderly. Vitamin D supplementation of elderly persons who are already vitamin D deficient is unlikely to improve cognition much.

Reference:

Pham, H., Waterhouse, M., Rahman, S., Baxter, C., Romero, B. D., McLeod, D. S. A., Armstrong, B. K., Ebeling, P. R., English, D. R., Hartel, G., Kimlin, M. G., O’Connell, R. L., van der Pols, J. C., Venn, A. J., Webb, P. M., Whiteman, D. C., Almeida, O. P., & Neale, R. E. (2023). Vitamin D supplementation and cognition—Results from analyses of the D‐Health trial. In Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1111/jgs.18247