Vitamin D3 in Disease Prevention in Adults – a Systematic Review

Introduction: Current evidence indicates that vitamin D3 plays significant role in calcium balance and bone metabolism through lifetime. There are also the evidence on preventive efficacy of vitamin D3 in diabetes, insulin-resistance, hypertension and malignancy.

Materials and methods: The aim of the systematic review was to gather evidence regarding vitamin D3 in disease prevention in adults. MEDLINE via Pubmed was searched using keywords: „vitamin D3”, „prevention”, „adults”, „cardiovascular diseases”, „cancer”, „osteoporosis”, “common cold”, “cold”, “diabetes”, “obesity”, “depression”. 26 trials were included into analysis: 17 randomized clinical trials, five observational studies, two systematic reviews, and two metaanalysis.

Results: Vitamin D3 appears to has a beneficial effect on patients in a depression therapy, protective effect on beta-cells in diabetic patients and reducing frequency of adverse events, such as thrombosis, in patients with prostate cancer. Supplementing with vitamin D3 results with no significant improve in reducing body weight, fat, blood pressure, risk of hypertension, level of lipids in serum, response to treatment in cancer prostate (together with dexamethasone and carboplatin). Many studies highlights beneficial influence of vitamin D3 with calcium on bone mineral density in whole body. Another studies shows improve in bone mineral density in hips and pelvic bones only. There were inconsistencies of studies’ results regarding role of vitamin D3 in prevention of diabetes, risk of breast cancer and influence on bone mineral density.

Conclusions: Despite all inconsistencies supplementation of vitamin D3 is important and plays role in effective osteoporotic management and there is the evidence on preventive efficacy of vitamin D3 in different diseases in adults.

KEY WORDS: vitamin D₃, adults, prevention, cancer, obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis