The Effect of Vitamin D Supplementation on Lipid Profiles: an Umbrella Review of Meta-Analyses

According to published meta-analyses, vitamin D exerts different beneficial effects in preventing and controlling risk factors associated with noncommunicable chronic diseases; however, the results are still conflicting. The purpose of this umbrella meta-analysis was to investigate the effect of vitamin D supplementation on low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, total cholesterol (TC), and triglyceride (TG) as components of the lipid profile. PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews were systematically searched for meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials. The umbrella meta-analysis followed the PRISMA guidelines. The random-effects model was employed to estimate the overall effect size (ES). Overall, 25 meta-analyses were included. In the standardized mean difference analysis, vitamin D significantly decreased TG (ES: -0.15; 95% CI: -0.23, -0.08; P <= 0.001) and TC levels (ES: -0.17; 95% CI: -0.23, -0.11; P <= 0.001) and increased HDL levels (ES: 0.08; 95% CI: 0.01, 0.15; P = 0.025). In the weighted mean difference analysis, vitamin D significantly decreased only TG levels (ES: -4.63 mg/dL; 95% CI: -7.70, -1.57; P = 0.003). The present study supports that vitamin D supplementation could be considered a beneficial adjuvant therapy in managing lipid profile levels, especially in individuals with vitamin D deficiency.