Research

Mixed

Gut microbiota composition may influence individual responsiveness to vitamin D supplementation, with non-responders showing specific depletion of Bacteroides acidifaciens.

If you take vitamin D and your levels don't rise, your gut bacteria might be the reason. Specifically, low levels of Bacteroides acidifaciens might predict poor response. This is an emerging area of research.

ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
We hypothesized that the composition of the gut microbiota might also affect responsiveness to vitamin D intake... Significant decrease in Bacteroides acidifaciens in non-responders.
Parul Singh et al. · Scientific Reports · 2020

Why this rating

Observational finding within a trial; hypothesis-generating rather than definitive proof of causality.

Source

The potential role of vitamin D supplementation as a gut microbiota modifier in healthy individuals

Parul Singh et al. · Scientific Reports · 2020

DOI 10.1038/s41598-020-77806-4

rct · n=80Cited 227×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →