Vitamin D supplements do not really help relieve arthritic knee pain, a new study has found. Patients with low levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D were also not freed of pain and cartilage loss after taking vitamin D.
About 10 percent of men and 13 percent of women undergo treatments that help alleviate the signs and symptoms of osteoarthritis.
As of the moment, there is no cure yet for the root of the disease, hence therapies are centered on relieving what patients feel.
Vitamin D is recognized to decrease bone loss and degradation of cartilage, possibly preventing the occurrence and advancement of osteoarthritis in the knees.
"Observational studies suggest that vitamin D supplementation is associated with benefits for knee osteoarthritis," the authors write. However, findings from different sources are conflicting.
Investigating The Effects Of Vitamin D
The study's main goal is to compare the impacts of vitamin D supplementation against placebo on knee pain and volume of knee cartilage among individuals with low levels of vitamin D and demonstrative knee osteoarthritis.
The researchers from Australia and China performed a randomized and double blind clinical testing involving 413 enrollees from June 2010 to December 2011.
Each of the participants were randomly asked to receive either a 50,000 IU of oral vitamin D3 or an identical placebo. The patients were asked to take these drugs every month for two years.
Not Really Helpful In Relieving Arthritic Knee Pain
Only 340 of the enrolled subjects were able to complete the clinical trial.
The findings show that there was a greater rise of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in patients included in the vitamin D therapy group than those in the placebo group.
Ultimately, there were no notable deviations in the yearly change of cartilage volume in the placebo group. Also, there were no significant differences in the cartilage defects or modifications in bone marrow lesions. These indicators were measured via MRI scans.
Adverse effects occurred in both groups but were noted in more patients in the vitamin D group than in the placebo group with 56 and 37 participants respectively.
Overall, the authors note that their work was not able to back up claims that vitamin D can prevent cartilage loss or reduce arthritic knee pain.
The study was published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Tuesday, March 8.
Photo : Bradley Stemke | Flickr
