{"id":301560,"date":"2025-10-14T03:10:30","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T03:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/301560\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T03:10:30","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T03:10:30","slug":"vitamin-d2-supplements-may-weaken-your-immune-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/301560\/","title":{"rendered":"Vitamin D2 Supplements May Weaken Your Immune System"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though the NHS is pretty sceptical about the use<\/a> of vitamin C, garlic, or echinacea supplements to prevent or speed up recovery from colds, they do reccomend all adults<\/a> \u201cconsider taking a daily vitamin D supplement during the autumn and winter\u201d.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because our body doesn\u2019t make enough of the stuff in the darker months as sunlight decreases. Vitamin D is key to <\/a>keeping our bones, teeth, and muscles healthy, and can help to keep our immune system <\/a>in good nick.<\/p>\n

But a recent review published in Nutrition Reviews<\/a> suggested that not all vitamin D supplements are created equal.<\/p>\n

In fact, they write, vitamin D2 might actually reduce the vitamin D type linked to better immunity, giving the opposite effect than that for which many of us purchase the supplement.<\/p>\n

Why might vitamin D2 supplements not be as useful for us?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A previous paper published in Frontiers in Immunology <\/a>found that vitamin D2 and vitamin D3 do not seem to do the same thing in our bodies. <\/p>\n

Vitamin D3 might be better at building the virus-fighting part of our immune system, the study found.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have shown that vitamin D3, but not vitamin D2, appears to stimulate the type I interferon signalling system in the body \u2013 a key part of the immune system that provides a first line of defence against bacteria and viruses,\u201d study co-author Professor Colin Smith said<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But in conversation with the BBC<\/a>, Prof Susan Lanham-New<\/a>, the recent study\u2019s co-author, said, \u201cWe were really astonished that when you give D2, the D3 levels drop below even the placebo.\u201d<\/p>\n

This new paper analysed the data from randomised controlled trials and found that vitamin D2 supplementation appeared to decrease<\/a> levels of vitamin D3, though they stress this finding \u201chas yet to be quantified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to the University of Surrey<\/a>, Emily Brown, lead researcher of the study, said: \u201cWe discovered that vitamin D2 supplements can actually decrease levels of vitamin D3 in the body, which is a previously unknown effect of taking these supplements.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis study suggests that, subject to personal considerations, vitamin D3 supplements may be more beneficial for most individuals over vitamin D2.\u201d <\/p>\n

More research is needed into vitamin D function<\/strong><\/p>\n

The paper highlighted the importance of learning more about the impacts of vitamin D types on our immune system \u2013 \u201cFurther research into the mechanistic and physiological function of vitamin D2 and D3 supplementation should be a priority,\u201d it reads<\/a>. <\/p>\n

This might be of particular importance to Black and South Asian groups living at northern latitudes, the earlier Frontier paper suggested<\/a>, as they are at greater risk of developing a vitamin D deficiency.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot more work that we now need to do because the long-term impact could be that you don\u2019t reach the required vitamin D levels or, dare I say it, you could make the situation worse,\u201d Prof Lanham-New told the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though the NHS is pretty sceptical about the use of vitamin C, garlic, or echinacea supplements to prevent…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":301561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[210,16121,67,132,68,2797],"class_list":{"0":"post-301560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-immunity","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us","13":"tag-vitamins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115370329899694324","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}