Scientists from Chungnam National University found that vitamin D and calcium supplements may help benefit people with vertigo.
Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo is one of the most common causes of vertigo — the sudden sensation that you’re spinning or that the inside of your head is spinning.
It can cause brief episodes of mild to intense dizziness. It is usually triggered by specific changes in your head’s position. It may go away on its own within a few weeks or months.
Vitamin D is essential for strong bones for a number of reasons.
It helps increase the absorption of calcium and phosphorous from the small intestine helps regulate the amount of calcium in our blood and helps strengthen our skeleton.
It can also assist with muscle function and reduce the risk of falls.
Calcium and vitamin D work together to protect bones—calcium helps build and maintain bones, while vitamin D helps your body effectively absorb calcium.
In the current study, researchers aimed to test the effect of vitamin D and calcium supplementation in preventing recurrences of this type of common vertigo.
They analyzed data from 8 hospitals between December 2013 and May 2017.
Patients with confirmed vertigo were assigned to the drug intervention or the observation group.
Patients in the intervention group had taken vitamin D 400 IU and 500 mg of calcium carbonate twice a day for 1 year when serum vitamin D level was lower than 20 ng/mL.
Patients in the observation group were assigned to follow-ups without further vitamin D evaluation or supplementation.
The team examined the recurrence risk of vertigo in both groups.
They found that the vitamin D group showed a reduction in the recurrence risk of vertigo. The proportion of patients with recurrence was also lower in the vitamin D group than in the observation group.
Based on the findings, the researchers concluded supplementation of vitamin D and calcium may be considered in patients with frequent attacks of vertigo, especially when their vitamin D levels are lower than normal.
They suggest that for people with vertigo, taking a supplement of vitamin D and calcium is a simple, low-risk way to prevent vertigo from recurring. It can be especially effective if people have low vitamin D levels, to begin with.
The research was published in Neurology and was conducted by Seong-Hae-Jeong et al.
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