Scientists say that taking vitamin D supplements is associated with lower rates of suicide and self-harm. New research shows that people who have received these supplements are less likely to commit suicide than others.
In a study of a large group of American veterans, a group of researchers found that suicide rates were much lower among those who took vitamin D supplements than those who did not. They looked at data from hundreds of thousands of veterans and looked for people who had received the drug at least once between 2010 and 2018.
By examining the data of the people who took vitamin D and the rest of the people who did not receive this supplement, the researchers found that the rate of suicide and self-harm was 0.36% in the second group and 0.2% in the first group. More precisely, the use of vitamin D2 was observed with a 48.8% decrease and vitamin D3 with a 44.8% decrease in the suicide rate.
Can vitamin D intake lower suicide rates?
Of course, scientists say that this relationship is not a cause and effect type, but a correlation type. They also claim that this relationship is stronger in black people, leading to a 60% reduction in suicide rates.
Additionally, this link appeared to be most pronounced in the vitamin D-deficient group; The suicide rate in these people has decreased by more than 64% with the use of vitamin D supplements.
This new study confirms that vitamin D can play an important role in depression and suicidal behaviors.
However, the current research has some limitations. For example, the researchers couldn’t know whether the people who had lower suicide rates were influenced by other factors, such as social support groups, because they looked at the records.
Therefore, it is necessary to conduct more research to find out whether the relationship between vitamin D consumption and suicide rate reduction can be a causal relationship or not. The results of the current research have been published in the journal PLoS One.
