Mechanism Discovered of How Vitamin D May Help Weight Loss

By Jeff Nicklas, Vitamin D Council

In obesity, cells called adipocytes increase. Adipocytes are fat cells and are the main make-up of adipose, or fat, tissue. These cells, along with adipose tissue as a whole, help store energy from food as fat. An increase in food consumption leads to an increase in storage of energy and subsequent increase in total adipocytes.

It has been hypothesized that a decrease in the number of adipocytes can help in weight loss and weight maintenance. This decrease in adipocytes would be achieved through inducing apoptosis, or cell death.

Researchers have been curious if vitamin D plays a role at all in the death of adipocyte cells. Vitamin D receptors are found on cells all over the body. With cancer cells in particular, vitamin D has been shown to help induce apoptosis.

If vitamin D did play a role in adipocyte cell death, then vitamin D may indeed have a minor role in weight management and loss.

In the present study, researchers set out to investigate this potential mechanism. They fed mice a high-fat diet to induce obesity. The researchers then randomly assigned the mice to either a treatment or control group.

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