Vitamin D levels may predict weight loss success



[Music plays] And the study that we did, the observational stud 19"Baseline Vitamin D Status," not only predicted weight lost but it predicted fat loss in particular. Did not predict any change in muscle mass but it predicted fat loss in particular and especially abdominal fat loss. So, these are obviously, they're very important issues from a health standpoint because so many health problems and conditions that we're faced with. And, again, in our modern lives are related to fat, excess fat and excess abdominal fat so a maladaptive fat distribution. We already had a study that was ongoing where we were bringing individuals into the clinical research center here and putting them on a low-calorie weight loss diet and having them lose weight for another purpose but we decided to, to go ahead and measure their vitamin D levels at baseline and ask an important questio 11Is it possible that their baseline vitamin D levels actually predicted their ability to go through a standardized reduced-calorie weight loss diet? Would we in fact see that the level of vitamin D that they started with seem to predict how successful they would be when we put them on a standard weight loss approach. And very interestingly, we did in fact find in our study of 38 individuals that their baseline vitamin D level predicted their ability to lose weight subsequently when you put them on a standard reduced-calorie diet. Well, the next step would be to begin to design, and we've actually been working on some of the design elements for the study, but to design a follow-up study where you're actually going to administer vitamin D in a controlled fashion. Again, as an adjunct to standard weight loss approaches and look to see if in fact, under very controlled clinical trial type setting, you know, you really have a cause-effect relationship. You really have an effect of the vitamin D intake and levels, all of those things on people's subsequent ability to lose weight and fat mass. [Music plays]