Vitamin D: anti-ageing effects

Vitamin D continues to amaze with its multiple benefits for our health. Recognised for its importance to muscle tone and bone, teeth and cartilage structure, vitamin D may also offer anti-ageing effects. This, at least, is the view of a number of research teams investigating the effects of vitamin D on ageing and age-related diseases. Nicknamed the ‘sunshine vitamin’, vitamin D could soon be referred to as a ‘longevity vitamin’. Let’s take a look at these important discoveries!

Large-scale study on vitamin D’s impact on ageing

In order to assess vitamin D’s potential to delay the ageing process, a research team studied its effect on the length of leukocyte telomeres. Telomere shortening is considered a sign of not only ageing but genomic instability and carcinogenesis. To obtain significant results, the researchers initiated a large-scale study of more than 4000 Americans of varying ages: 1542 young adults aged 20-39, 1336 middle-aged adults of 40-59 and 1382 older individuals of 60 plus. They analysed the length of each subject’s leukocyte telomeres as well as their levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, the active form of the vitamin. Other parameters were considered such as gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, body mass index, calorie, sugar and dairy consumption, calcium intake, and exercise levels. By the end of the study, the researchers had found an association between vitamin D levels and length of leukocyte telomeres, observing longer telomeres among middle-aged subjects with higher levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D. No external parameter appeared to confound these findings. The researchers were therefore able to conclude that a lack of vitamin D may be associated with genomic instability, which is responsible for decreased longevity. Published in 2017 in The Journal of Nutrition, this study confirms the long-term importance to the body of vitamin D¹.

The importance of vitamin D for longevity

Though vitamin D was already recognised for playing a number of roles within the body, its anti-ageing effect was less established. To better understand this aspect of the vitamin, scientists studied its metabolism in the species Caenorhabditis elegans, a tiny worm often used in research because of its similarities to the human body. Their results suggested that the D3 form of the vitamin may increase the lifespan and homeostasis of various proteins, possibly because of its action on metabolic pathways of the genes skn-1, ire-1, and xbp-1. Through this action, vitamin D3 may, in particular, prevent the toxicity caused by beta-amyloid peptides. Published in 2016 in the journal Cell Reports, these results confirm vitamin D’s beneficial effect in slowing down the ageing process².

These highly-promising findings emphasise the importance of maintaining sufficient levels of vitamin D, particularly since intake of this vitamin can sometimes be inadequate. While the body is able to produce vitamin D from exposure of the skin to the sun’s rays, it can also be obtained from the diet. Supplements have thus been specifically developed to provide vitamin D3, a precursor of the active form of the vitamin. These supplements are available to buy from the Supersmart catalogue in various formats to suit individual needs: Vitamin D3 1 000 IU, Vitamin D3 5000 IU and Vitamin D3 Spray 2000 IU.

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> Sources :
1. Julia Beilfuss, Carlos A Camargo Jr., and Elena Kamycheva, Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Has a Modest Positive Association with Leukocyte Telomere Length in Middle-Aged US Adults, J. Nutr, February 8, 2017, jn244137.
2. Gordon J. Lithgow et al., Vitamin D Promotes Protein Homeostasis and Longevity via the Stress Response Pathway Genes skn-1, ire-1, and xbp-1, Cell Reports, 25 October 2016, Volume 17, Issue 5, p1227–1237.