In a new study, researchers found higher levels of vitamin D in the body are linked to a lower risk for incident type 2 diabetes.
The research was conducted by a team at Peking University in Beijing.
The team tested the link between vitamin D levels in the blood and the risk of type 2 diabetes, and whether any association is modified by sleep behaviors.
The analysis included 350,211 people free of diabetes participating in the U.K. Biobank.
During an eight years of follow-up, there were 6,940 people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
The researchers found that vitamin D levels were strongly linked to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
There was also a strong interaction between vitamin D levels and overall sleep patterns on the risk of type 2 diabetes.
Among participants with healthier sleep patterns, the inverse association between high vitamin D levels and type 2 diabetes was more prominent.
Daytime sleepiness showed the strongest interaction with vitamin D levels.
The lower risk of type 2 diabetes linked to high vitamin D levels was more prominent among participants with no frequent daytime sleepiness versus those with excessive daytime sleepiness.
These findings may have implications for the development of diabetes prevention strategies that target the improvement of vitamin D supplementation among people with sleep disorders.
One author of the study is Mengying Wang from Peking University in Beijing.
The study is published in Diabetes Care.
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