Background: Observational studies have linked low vitamin D status to unfavorable cardiometabolic risk markers, but double-blinded vitamin D intervention studies in children are scarce.
Objectives: The aim was to evaluate the effect of different doses of a vitamin D supplement on cardiometabolic risk markers in young healthy Swedish children with fair and dark skin.
Methods: Cardiometabolic risk markers were analyzed as secondary outcomes of a double-blind, randomized, milk-based vitamin D intervention trial conducted during late fall and winter in 2 areas of Sweden (latitude 63°N and 55°N, respectively) in both fair- and dark-skinned 5- to 7-y-old children. During the 3-mo intervention, 206 children were randomly assigned to a daily milk-based vitamin D3 supplement of either 10 or 25 µg or placebo (2 µg; only at 55°N). Anthropometric measures, blood pressure, serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D], total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, apoA-I, apoB, and C-reactive protein (CRP) were analyzed and non-HDL cholesterol calculated at baseline and after the intervention.
Results: At baseline, serum 25(OH)D was negatively associated with systolic and diastolic blood pressure (β = -0.194; 95% CI: -0.153, -0.013; and β = -0.187; 95% CI: -0.150, -0.011, respectively). At follow-up, there was no statistically significant difference in any of the cardiometabolic markers between groups.
Conclusions: We could not confirm any effect of vitamin D supplementation on serum lipids, blood pressure, or CRP in healthy 5- to 7-y-old children. The study was registered at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT01741324).
Keywords: blood pressure; latitude; serum lipids; skin color; vitamin D supplement.
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020.