Vitamin D Research
Published Over the past two and one-half years, David Arvold, MD, St. Luke’s Internal Medicine Associates, has led research on Vitamin D deficiency. The research project and conclusions were recently published in Endocrine Practice (2009; 15:202-211). Following is an overview.
Correlation of Symptoms With Vitamin D Deficiency and Symptom Response to CHOLECALCIFEROL Treatment: A Randomized Controlled Trial In this research, the authors studied Vitamin D deficiency association with musculoskeletal symptoms and response to Vitamin D treatment in a randomized, blinded placebo-controlled trial conducted with 100 mild to moderately deficient subjects and in 38 severely deficient subjects given known Vitamin D supplementation. Their conclusion: Initial screening of 610 people during the month of February found that nearly 50 percent of the subjects tested had low levels of Vitamin D. Severely deficient subjects had increased individual musculoskeletal symptoms, but these symptoms were not improved with replacement in the short (eight weeks) or long term (one year). Mild to moderately deficient subjects’ fibromyalgia impact scores were improved by replacement within eight weeks.
Researchers: David S. Arvold, MD1; Marilyn J. Odean, MS3; Maude P. Dornfeld, MA3; Ronald R. Regal, PhD4; Judith G. Arvold, MD1; Gene C. Karwoski, MD1; David J. Mast, MD1; Paul B. Sanford, MD1; Robert J. Sjoberg, MD, FACE2
1–St. Luke’s Internal Medicine Associates
2–St. Luke’s Endocrinology Associates
3–Whiteside Institute for Clinical Research, University of Minnesota Medical School Duluth
4–Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Minnesota, Duluth