Vitamin D helps reduce risk of sarcopenic obesity
09 Jun 2025
There's more to Vitamin D that just aiding calcium absorption for healthy bones.Greater concentrations of serum 25-hydroxivitamin D (25[OH]D) appear to prevent the incidence of sarcopenic obesity (SO), suggests a study.
Longitudinal observational data from the UK Biobank cohort were obtained to explore the relationship between serum 25(OH)D concentration and the risk of SO incidence in 46,535 individuals. The investigators used Cox proportional hazards models to estimate the hazard ratios (HRs) and 95 percent confidence intervals (CIs) between serum 25(OH)D concentration and risk of SO incidence by sex.
Overall, 1,086 incident SO cases were observed during a median follow-up of 8.74 years. In adjusted multivariate analysis, the second (HR, 0.66, 95 percent CI, 0.53‒0.82), third (HR, 0.53, 95 percent CI, 0.41‒0.67), and fourth quartile (HR, 0.43, 95 percent CI, 0.33‒0.55) of 25(OH)D concentration in female participants correlated with a lower risk of SO incidence versus the lowest quartile (ptrend<0.001).
The same trend was observed in male individuals: second (HR, 0.86, 95 percent CI, 0.66‒1.10), third (HR, 0.68, 95 percent CI, 0.56‒0.92), and fourth quartiles (HR, 0.40, 95 percent CI, 0.29‒0.54; ptrend<0.001).
In restricted cubic spline analysis, a nonlinear association was observed between serum 25(OH)D concentration and SO incidence risk in female (p=0.043) and male (p=0.008) participants.
“Higher serum 25(OH)D concentration was significantly associated with a lower risk of SO incidence in a dose–response relationship,” the investigators said.