Research

Hormonal

Vitamin D supplementation does not significantly improve glycaemic control (HbA1c) or insulin resistance in patients with normal fasting glucose, and provides only a small, likely clinically insignificant reduction in fasting glucose for those with diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance.

If you have diabetes or pre-diabetes, taking Vitamin D supplements is unlikely to significantly lower your blood sugar or HbA1c levels. While there might be a tiny reduction in fasting glucose for some, it is not clinically significant enough to rely on as a treatment. Focus on proven methods like diet, exercise, and prescribed medication instead.

GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
Combining all studies, no significant improvement was seen in fasting glucose, HbA1c or insulin resistance in those treated with vitamin D compared with placebo... For patients with diabetes or impaired glucose tolerance, meta-analysis showed a small effect on fasting glucose... and a small improvement in insulin resistance... No effect was seen on glycated haemoglobin in patients with diabetes and no differences were seen for any outcome in patients with normal fasting glucose.
Priya George et al. · Diabetic Medicine · 2012

Why this rating

Systematic review and meta-analysis of 15 randomized controlled trials, though reporting quality was variable.

Source

Effect of vitamin D supplementation on glycaemic control and insulin resistance: a systematic review and meta‐analysis

Priya George et al. · Diabetic Medicine · 2012

DOI 10.1111/j.1464-5491.2012.03672.x

Meta-analysis · 15 studiesCited 357×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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