Background: Sweden is a country where vitamin D deficiency seems to be common, partly because of its geographical position, which reduces the availability of UVB radiation, but also that people avoid sunlight due to increased skin cancer risk. Research shows that vitamin D plays an important role in the prevention of many diseases such as cancer as well as autoimmune and neuropsychiatric diseases.Vitamin D is a fat soluble pre-hormone and a collective name for closely related compounds which act as hormones after undergoing a transformation in the body.Humans can utilize vitamin D through diet and produce it in the body by exposing the skin to the sun. Previous observational studies and epidemiological studies have established a hypothesis that there seems to be an association between vitamin D supplementation and reduction of depressive symptoms. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate if vitamin D supplements may decrease depressive symptoms. Methods: This work is organized as a literature review and article search is made in the database PubMed in January 2012. Keywords used were “vitamin D and depression” and inclusion criteria were: randomized clinical trials, be conducted on humans, written in English. The studies have been reviewed and assessed using Jadads scoring system. Results: Six studies were selected for the work. Three of the studies show that supplementation with vitamin D can decrease mood/depressive symptoms, and two of the studies cannot prove the same result. The doses given in these studies varies from 400 to 500 000 IU. The final article studies how the levels of calcitriol in the blood increases after light exposure, and whether this has an effect on patients with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) compared to controls. The result of this study are that levels of 1,25(OH)2 D was not affected by phototherapy of SAD patients and controls.Conclusion: The six studies examined in this work haven’t given any convincing results partly because lack of good quality in the studies and they have failed to show convincing correlation. More large randomized controlled trials are required to know whether vitamin D supplements have an effect on depressive symptoms.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-18746 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Hristova, Atidge |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för naturvetenskap, NV |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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