Help FOr Teens with Depression Could Come from vitamin d

Depression is common and potentially debilitating. Teen depression is a serious mental health problem. A safe, effective, affordable and natural treatment could offer a lot of help to a lot of young people. New research is pointing to vitamin D as part of that help. 

​There are many possible contributing causes to depression and many ways vitamin D might help. Vitamin D is vital for neurotransmitter regulation. It helps prevent depletion of dopamine and serotonin. Vitamin D is also an anti-inflammatory that can hold back the inflammatory cytokines that are now known to be associated with depression. 

Low Levels of vitamin D are associated with depression (Br J Psychiatry. 2013 Feb; 202:100-7). People with vitamin D deficiency are 4.7 times more likely to suffer from depression than people with sufficient levels of vitamin D. And the lower the levels of vitamin D, the worse the severity of the depression (Ind Psychiatry j. 2023 Jan-Jun;32(1);100-105). 

Supplementing vitamin D can help, according toa 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis of 41 of controlled studies (J Clin Nutr. 2022; nqac107). 
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In 2023, researched conducted an umbrella meta-analysis, which means that they did a meta-analysis of all existing meta-analyses. Meta-analysis of 4 meta-analyses found that people with lower vitamin D are at increased risk of depression. Meta-analysis of 10 meta-analyses found that, compared to placebo, vitamin D significantly improves depression (Pharmacol Res. 2023 Jan: 187:106605). 

Now a new study has shown that vitamin D can help adolescents with depression. The study gave either 2250 IU of vitamin D a day or 250 IU of vitamin D plus 500 mg of calcium to depressed teenagers for 9 weeks. 

The vitamin D group, but not the low dose vitamin D control group, had significantly improved scores on the Beck Depression Inventory and the improvement in depression scores was significantly greater in the Vitamin D group. 

This study adds to the evidence that vitamin D may have an important role to play in the treatment of depression and adds the valuable new evidence that it may also specifically helps teenagers struggling with depression.