Supplements can help vitamin D deficient type 2 diabetes patients

Supplementation of vitamin D could lower the levels of fasting blood glucose and insulin in type 2 diabetes patients with insufficient vitamin D levels.
An Iranian study aimed to investigate how therapeutic vitamin D doses would affect adiponectin (a protein that helps regulate glucose levels), which is inversely associated with insulin resistance in type 2 diabetics with low vitamin D levels.
In a study supported by the Diabetes Research Centre, Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Centre, Tehran University of Medical Science, Ira, researchers conducted a double-blind, randomised clinical trial on 81 patients with type 2 diabetes. All patients had vitamin D levels of 10-30 ng/mL.
They received 50,000 IU’s (International Units) of vitamin D or placebo once a week for a duration of eight weeks. Blood samples were collected following 12 hours of fasting at the beginning and the end of the study.
Vitamin D supplementation was found to increase vitamin D levels significantly to a normal rate, while the levels of fasting blood glucose and insulin were also decreased.
This eight-week period was not sufficient, however, to display any possible effects of vitamin D on adiponectin levels, which are related directly to insulin sensitivity. These levels did not change during the study.