Effect of vitamin D supplementation on markers of cardiometabolic risk in children and adolescents: A meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials

Background and aims: An increasing attention to the effect of vitamin D supplementa-tion on cardiometabolic risk markers in children and adolescents has been gained recently. How-ever, the results are inconsistent. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis to examine the effect of vitamin D supplementation on cardiometabolic risk markers in children and adolescents. Methods and results: Eligible randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were identified by searching PubMed, EMBASE and Web of Science. The results of this study are synthetized and reported in accordance with the PRISMA statement. GRADE system was used to assess the certainty of ev -iden ce. A total of 9 RCTs were identified and included in the meta-analysis. We found that vitamin D supplementation did not affect the changes of cardiometabolic risk markers including high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), body mass index (BMI), waist circumferences, systolic blood pressure (SDP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). However, vitamin D supplementation showed a beneficial effect on fasting glucose (MD,-1.54 mg/dl, 95% CI-2.98 to-0.10) and TG (MD,-24.76 mg/dl, 95% CI-37.66 to-11.86) in the sub-group analysis of total vitamin D supplementation > 200,000 IU. Conclusions: Vitamin D supplementation appeared to have a beneficial effect on reducing fasting glucose and TG level when total vitamin D supplementation >200,000 IU but not HDL-C, LDL-C TC, blood pressure and waist circumferences levels in children and adolescents. Further studies are needed to address this issue. (c) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of The Italian Diabetes Society, the Ital-ian Society for the Study of Atherosclerosis, the Italian Society of Human Nutrition and the Department of Clinical Medicine and Surgery, Federico II University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This meta-analysis study showed that vitamin D supplementation did not significantly affect cardiometabolic risk markers in children and adolescents, but may have beneficial effects on fasting glucose and triglyceride levels with higher total vitamin D supplementation.