Vitamin D supplement does not reduce pain or cartilage loss in knee osteoarthritis, says new study

A new study, published in JAMA, has found that there are no associated benefits to taking vitamin D supplements for people who have knee osteoarthritis.

Vitamin D is known to reduce bone turnover and cartilage degradation, but in a controlled trial, it did not slow progression of knee osteoarthritis or reduce the pain.

Dr Changhai Ding from the Menzies Institute for Medical Research, at the University of Tasmania in Australia, led a team of researchers who enrolled 413 people with knee osteoarthritis who also had low vitamin D levels in their bodies.

Participants in the study were randomly assigned to receive monthly treatment for two years with either oral vitamin D3  or an identical placebo and just over 82% of participants completed the study.

The main outcomes of the study were changes over the two-year period in tibial cartilage volume, as assessed using MRI, and change in pain using a recognised pain score. Other outcomes included cartilage defects, lower limb muscle strength and bone marrow lesions, also assessed using MRI.

The results of the study showed that although levels of vitamin D increased more in the group taking monthly treatment of vitamin D than in the placebo group, there were no significant changes in tibial cartilage volume, compared to the placebo group on in the pain score.

The study authors said that results showed that even among study participants with low vitamin D, supplementation did not slow cartilage loss of improve pain. “These data suggest a lack of evidence to support vitamin D supplementation for slowing disease progression or structural change in knee osteoarthritis.”

According to the authors, one strength of the study was that it included only patients with symptomatic nee osteoarthritis who were vitamin D insufficient and who therefore might be most likely to benefit from vitamin D supplements.

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