Vitamin D Linked to Better Weight Loss

Dieting is really, really difficult. So why not give yourself the best chance of getting the results you want? A new research study suggests that your level of vitamin D at the outset of a reduced-calorie diet shows a clear correlation with improved weight loss. The study was presented at the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists annual meeting.

It was a small study of just 38 overweight men and women. But the results were striking. The researchers took detailed measures of vitamin D levels in the subject at the beginning, during and after they started a diet that trimmed their daily eating by 750 calories. That's a pretty serious restriction, as most people need about 2,000 calories per day or less to maintain body weight.

"Vitamin D deficiency is associated with obesity, but it is not clear if inadequate vitamin D causes obesity or the other way around," said the study's lead author, Shalamar Sibley, M.D., MPH, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota, in a prepared statement.

Most of the study subjects were found to have come into the study with inadequate vitamin D levels. What's most interesting in the study findings, though, is what researchers call a "dose-dependent response" relationship between levels of vitamin D and amount of weight loss. In other words, the more vitamin D in a dieter's system, the more weight they lost. And people who started with higher vitamin D levels achieved better loss of abdominal weight.