By David Liu, PHD

Saturday Feb 16, 2013 (foodconsumer.org) -- Type 2 diabetes mellitus is more likely to develop in individuals with vitamin D deficiency, a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found.

Hak Chul Jang from Seoul National University College of Medicine and Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, Seongnam, Korea and colleagues conducted the study and found the association.

Vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency has been associated with insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes in previous studies.  The current study examined the association among a group pf Korean subjects.

The study involved 1080 non-diabetic Korean women and men at a mean age of 49.5 years who had at least one risk factor for type 2 diabetes such as obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and or family history of type 2 diabetes mellitus.

During a 5-year follow-up, data adjusted for "age, sex, blood pressure, lifestyle, family history, season, parathyroid hormone, and high sensitivity C reactive protein" showed that participants with vitamin D deficiency were at increase risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus, independent of body mass index, insulin resistance index.

Specifically, those with 10-19.9 ng/mL of 25(OH)D  were twice as likely as those with  greater than 20 ng/mL of 25(OH)D to develop type 2 diabetes and those with lower than 10 ng/mL were 3 times as likely as those with greater than 20 ng/mL of vitamin D to develop type 2 diabetes.

The researchers concluded "The current prospective study suggests that vitamin D metabolism may play a role in T2D pathogenesis independently of known risk factors."