SUPPLEMENTED VITAMIN D AND GLYCEMIC PARAMETERS IN DIABETIC PATIENTS

There is alarming increase in prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus worldwide. Although lifestyle modifications may delay the development of type 2 diabetes, maintaining long term behavioral changes is difficult. Therefore, new strategies to reduce the incidence of type 2 diabetes are needed for people with impaired glucose tolerance. This research aimed to study the effect of supplemented vitamin D on glycemic control in newly diagnosed patients with T2DM. An open-label, randomized, controlled clinical trial, was carried out in the period from May to November, 2023, on newly diagnosed T2DM patients who met the inclusion criteria treated with metformin and vitamin D (n=30) or metformin only as control group (n=20).  attending Aden Diabetic Center at Al-Gamhouria General Modern Hospital, Aden.  Data collected by using structured questionnaire including sex, age, family history of diabetes, height, weight, waist circumference, adherence to diet and exercise, smoking and khat chewing. glycemic parameters and serum vitamin D level were also measured. Descriptive statistics and Chi-square tests were used for data analysis with P ≤ 0.05 considered significant. Vitamin D and control group showed almost the same mean age, 49.7±7.87 years and 49.6±8.94 years, respectively. Paired t-test was applied to compare the baseline mean of vitamin D level with the mean after three months of vitamin D supplementation within vitamin D group, there was a slight increase in vitamin D levels with statistically significance difference (P=0.000), while the control group showed statistically insignificance difference after 3 months from baseline (P= 0.104). After 3 months supplementation with vitamin D, there was statistically significant differences from the baseline for HBAIc , FBG and  RBG within vitamin D group with P = 0.001, p=0.000 and p=0.000, respectively, where paired t-test was applied. There was a decrease in the percentage of patient with glycosylated hemoglobin category > 8.5% from (90% to 86%), after 3 months with no change in control group. In conclusion, glycemic parameters of newly diagnosed patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus were slightly improved after supplementation with vitamin D compared to the standard treatment. Further studies with larger samples are crucial to address the status of vitamin D among diabetes.