A study published by a joint venture of the University of Texas Southwest's Medical Center and the Cooper Institute in Dallas has linked low levels of vitamin D to depression, according to the Mother Nature Network. The study appears in the latest edition of Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
What are the specifics of this study?
Researchers compared the vitamin D test results of about 12,600 adults over four years, beginning in late 2006. According to ProHealth, participants were divided into two groups, based on whether they had a past history of suffering from depression. The participants' current levels of vitamin D were then tested, as well as their current depressive symptoms, or lack thereof.
What did the study find?
Scientists found people that currently had low levels of vitamin D, particularly if they had a past history of depression, were significantly more likely to display depressive symptoms than people with normal or high levels of vitamin D. EmaxHealth reported these findings corroborate and provide a more solid basis for earlier, smaller studies that had seemed to indicate a link between the two but had ultimately been deemed inconclusive. This current study is among the largest ever to test the relationship between depression and vitamin D deficiency.
Based on the findings, what did the researchers conclude?
That testing people who are displaying symptoms of depression for low levels of vitamin D would be wise. The team stopped short, however, of actually recommending supplements, asserting that more research into the link between the two needed to be conducted.
Although they established a link between the two, scientists are unsure which comes first, the vitamin D deficiency or the depression. It is possible that depression can lower a person's levels of vitamin D, but it is considered just as likely that a vitamin D deficiency causes depression. According to UPI, researchers believe the link may have to do with the way that vitamin D and depression affect neurotransmitters and inflammatory markers, among other systems in the body.
What's next?
Researchers might have established a link between vitamin D deficiency, but they haven't proven how the two actually interact with each other. Because of that fact, it also remains unknown as to whether or not providing supplements to raise the vitamin D levels of a person suffering from depression would actually be effective.
Vanessa Evans is a musician and freelance writer based in Michigan, with a lifelong interest in health and nutrition issues.
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