Vitamin D as an accelerator of atherosclerotic calcification: a D-tail that may be a Trojan horse

Excerpt

To the Editor: We read with great interest the article by Mathieu [1], which discusses whether vitamin D is important in diabetes. The author comes to several conclusions. The first is that severe vitamin D deficiency should be avoided in diabetes. We agree that the evidence is compelling. On the role for vitamin D supplementation above the threshold of vitamin D deficiency, it is concluded that high doses of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D reduce the incidence of diabetes in primary prevention studies in animal models. From this the author goes on to argue that carefully designed prospective placebo-controlled and randomised trials are required to provide definite answers as to the sense and non-sense of vitamin D supplementation in individuals affected by or at risk of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. …