Vitamin D improves gut flora, metabolic syndrome

• The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Physiology, found that an insufficient supply of Vitamin D aggravates the imbalance in gut flora, contributing to full-scale fatty liver and metabolic syndrome.
• If these findings can be validated in humans, sun bathing and Vitamin D supplements may be feasible and affordable approaches to improve or even prevent metabolic syndrome.
• “Based on this study, we believe that keeping Vitamin D levels high, either through sun exposure, diet or supplementation, is beneficial for prevention and treatment of metabolic syndrome,” said Professor Stephen Pandol from Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in the US.
• The main cause of metabolic syndrome appears to be a diet high in fat or carbohydrate.
• However, observational studies have also linked metabolic syndrome to Vitamin D deficiency, which affects 30 to 60 percent of the world’s population.
• The research team made important advances in understanding the causative role of Vitamin D in this syndrome.
• “A sufficient dietary Vitamin D supplement can partially but significantly antagonise metabolic syndrome caused by high fat diet in mice,” says Pandol
• “These are amounts equivalent to the dietary recommendations for humans.”
• More specifically, they have shown that a high fat diet affects the balance between good and bad bacteria in the gut. This induces modest fatty liver and slightly raises blood sugar levels in mice.
• Vitamin D deficiency decreases the production of defensins, which are anti-microbial molecules essential to maintain healthy gut flora. As expected, an oral supply of a synthetic defensin recovers gut bacteria balance, decreases blood sugar levels and improves fatty liver.
• Accordingly, Vitamin D supplementation improves metabolic syndrome in mice. The next step would be to validate the results in humans.

Vitamin d improves gut flora, metabolic syndrome