Science, Space and Technology News 2025
A major clinical trial has uncovered compelling evidence that vitamin D supplementation helps preserve telomeres, the DNA structures that protect chromosomes and shorten with age. Credit: ShutterstockFindings from the VITAL randomized controlled trial show that vitamin D supplementation can help preserve telomeres, the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes.
These structures naturally shorten with age, a process linked to the onset of many health conditions., draws on data from a VITAL sub-study led jointly by researchers at Mass General Brigham and the Medical College of Georgia. The results highlight vitamin D’s potential to slow one of the biological mechanisms associated with aging. “VITAL is the first large-scale and long-term randomized trial to show that vitamin D supplements protect telomeres and preserve telomere length,” said co-author JoAnn Manson, MD, principal investigator of VITAL and chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system. “This is of particular interest because VITAL had also shown benefits of vitamin D in reducing inflammation and lowering risks of selected chronic diseases of aging, such as advanced cancer and autoimmune disease.”sequences that serve as buffers, preventing chromosome ends from deteriorating or attaching to other chromosomes. Over time, telomeres naturally shorten, and this process has been strongly tied to a greater likelihood of developing age-related illnesses. JoAnn Manson, MD, and other VITAL faculty and staff at a research team meeting at BWH. Credit: JoAnn Manson, Brigham and Women’s Hospitalsupplementation may help support telomeres, but results have been inconsistent. VITAL is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of vitamin D3 and omega-3 fatty acid supplementation that tracked U.S. females aged 55 years and older and males aged 50 years and older for five years. The VITAL Telomere sub-study included 1,054 of these participants, whose telomere length in white blood cells was assessed at baseline and at Year 2 and Year 4. Compared with taking a placebo, taking vitamin D3 supplements significantly reduced telomere shortening over four years, preventing the equivalent of nearly three years of aging compared with placebo. Omega-3 fatty acid supplementation had no significant effect on telomere length throughout follow-up. “Our findings suggest that targeted vitamin D supplementation may be a promising strategy to counter a biological aging process, although further research is warranted,” said Haidong Zhu, PhD, first author of the report and a molecular geneticist at the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University. Reference: “Vitamin D3 and marine ω-3 fatty acids supplementation and leukocyte telomere length: 4-year findings from the VITamin D and OmegA-3 TriaL randomized controlled trial” by Haidong Zhu, JoAnn E Manson, Nancy R Cook, Bayu B Bekele, Li Chen, Kevin J Kane, Ying Huang, Wenjun Li, William Christen, I-Min Lee and Yanbin Dong, 21 May 2025,This work was supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute . The parent VITAL trial is supported by R01 AT011729.Researchers Find Keys to Vitamin C’s Effectiveness Against COVID-19Если у человека и так всегда витамин д в норме,то смысл перебарщивать? если уже не хватка,то да.Но прям таки старение мы все равно не обыграем,будет как и должно быть.Да и может эти женщины уже были генетически такие,что старение не сильное у них должно быть.Scientists Solve 90-Year-Old Mystery in Quantum Physics
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