Vitamin D status and its management for achieving optimal health benefits in the elderly.

Vitamin D status and its management for achieving optimal health benefits in the elderly. Expert Rev Endocrinol Metab. 2018 Oct 05;:1-15 Authors: Boucher BJ Abstract INTRODUCTION: Vitamin D deficiency is common, world-wide, but vitamin D repletion throughout life, and into older age, has accepted health benefits for bone. Many mechanisms through which vitamin D also benefits soft tissues are understood, and clinical evidence of such benefits is now accumulating, especially following re-analyses of trial data, which are revealing previously missed health benefits with correction of deficiency. Areas covered: The sources of vitamin D, its activation, mechanistic effects; problems of trials of supplementation for reducing health risks, the benefits shown for mortality, cardiovascular disease, infection and cancer; the global problem of vitamin D deficiency; age-related reductions in vitamin D efficacy, and currently recommended intakes. Expert commentary: High prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency worldwide have proven ill-effects on health. Governmental efforts to improve population repletion by recommending minimal daily intakes does benefit some but is not effective at the population-level. However, food fortification with vitamin D3, already implemented in some countries, can solve this highly avoidable problem cost-effectively and is probably the best way to abolish vitamin D inadequacy, allowing public health benefi...
Source: Expert Review of Endocrinology and Metabolism - Category: Endocrinology Tags: Expert Rev Endocrinol Metab Source Type: research