Vitamin D supplements may lead to longer life, lower healthcare costs: Study

*Researchers have found a significant reduction in the cancer mortality rate, saying a daily Vitamin D supplement could be incredibly beneficial for especially older consumers’ overall health and longevity

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

Recent studies have highlighted ability of Vitamin D as a powerful supplement, to improve vertigo symptoms and immune system health.

Yet, a fresh study by researchers from the German Research Centre suggests that taking a daily Vitamin D supplement could be incredibly beneficial for older consumers’ overall health and longevity.

The study findings revealed that increasing Vitamin D intake could be an effective way to reduce the cancer mortality rate while also cutting health care costs, agency report stated.

Hermann Brenner, one of the researchers, said: “In many countries around the world, the age-adjusted rate of cancer mortality has fortunately declined over the past decade. “However, given the often considerable costs of many new cancer drugs, this success has often come at a high price.

“Vitamin D, on the other hand, is comparatively inexpensive in the usual daily doses.”

As regards life-saving and cost-effective intervention of Vitamin D consumption, the researchers, in the study, focused on older people and cancer patients because these two groups are often deficient in Vitamin D.

The team consulted earlier studies, which had determined that a daily dose of vitamin D could lower the cancer mortality rate by 13 percent.

Using that information and medical records from 2016, they estimated both the costs and the lives that would be saved if all German citizens over the age of 50 were given a daily vitamin D supplement.

The researchers estimated that it would cost about 25 euros per person per year to administer 1,000 IU of vitamin D each day.

While this already seems like a major cost reduction, over the course of a whole year, the savings would be significant.

Compared to the cost of cancer treatments, the cost of a daily vitamin D supplement would reduce health care fees by more than 250 million euros per year.

Similarly, in looking at health care records from 2016, the researchers estimated that this vitamin supplementation would translate to more than 30,000 fewer cancer-related deaths.

According to the researchers, these findings are important for several reasons, but not least of which is that under this proposed plan, as consumers wouldn’t need to worry about overdoing it with vitamin D.

However, they stated that keeping the daily dose at 1,000 IU will be just enough for consumers to reap the health benefits while eliminating the potential risk of excessive Vitamin D levels.

It’s also important to note that though these findings are based on German statistics, the takeaways remain the same.

Vitamin D can impart important health benefits, and daily supplementation can be a powerful tool for improving consumers’ health and lowering health care costs.[do_widget id=heateor_sss_sharing-2