Replenishing a vitamin D deficiency may be necessary in some cases, as it reduces the likelihood that a person will attempt suicide or intentionally injure themselves. This conclusion was reached by American scientists from the Canandaigua Suicide Prevention Center of Excellence and the Wegmans School of Pharmacy at St. John Fisher College in Rochester. Their article published In the magazine PLOS One.
Vitamin D3 – cholecalciferol – enters the body either with food (for example, fatty fish and fish oil, some mushrooms, cheeses) containing its various forms, or is synthesized in the skin under the influence of ultraviolet B rays with a wavelength of 270-315 nanometers. Vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) can only be obtained from food. These bioactives help support bone health, immune system function, and the absorption of other micronutrients such as calcium and phosphorus. Vitamin D deficiency is estimated to affect a billion people around the world.
Previous research has shown that vitamin D deficiency is associated with depressive symptoms such as fatigue, sadness, hopelessness, suicidal thoughts, anxiety, insomnia and forgetfulness. However, the data were incomplete and often contradictory. The authors of the new work decided to test for themselves whether vitamin D intake is indeed correlated with a low risk of suicide attempt or self-harm among US veterans.
Researchers studied information from more than a million former military personnel: between 2010 and 2018, 169,241 of them took vitamin D2 for at least 90 days over two years, and 490,885 veterans took vitamin D3. The same number of people were recruited into two control groups.
The majority of participants were white males (86-88%), with a median age of 60.5 years. About a third suffered from depression, a quarter from post-traumatic stress disorder, the same number – affective disorder, regarding 4-5% – bipolar disorder, 5-6% had problems with sleep, less than 2% had schizophrenia. Almost half of the subjects were found to be vitamin D deficient, 30-31% had diabetes, 60-65% had elevated levels of lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides) and blood pressure, and 36-40% had reflux. The researchers used the Cox proportional hazards model to assess the association between vitamin D2 or D3 supplementation and suicide attempts.
The analysis showed that people who took vitamin D2 had a 48.8% lower risk of suicide or self-mutilation compared to the control group, and those who took vitamin D3 had a 44.8% lower risk compared to their control group. The effect was especially noticeable in veterans who initially had low levels of vitamin D (less than 20 nanograms per milliliter of blood), as well as in blacks.
Overall, 0.27% of those who received vitamin D2 supplements and 0.52% of people in the first control group attempted suicide or self-harm, as did 0.20% of those who took vitamin D3 and 0.36% of those who received vitamin D2 supplements. second control group. Gender did not influence the results.
“According to our results, supplementation with vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) or vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) correlates with a 45-48% reduction in the risk of suicide attempts and self-harm on average among veterans. However, more research is needed to determine whether the risk of suicide or self-harm changes with normal levels of vitamin D. <…> The findings of our work should be considered as associations, and not as causal effects, ”the scientists said.
They also noted that because the study included data primarily from middle-aged men, the results might not yet be generalized to other populations.
