A new study reports that vitamin D supplementation may help slow some of the mechanisms of biological aging.
The research, published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, suggests that vitamin D may help maintain the stability of telomeres, the protective caps at the end of chromosomes that tend to shorten as people get older.
That shortening is a natural part of aging, but it has been linked to certain age-related diseases. Among those diseases are cancer of the bladder, lungs, kidneys, and gastrointestinal systems.
“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, MD, PhD, the first author of the study and a molecular geneticist at the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta University, in a statement.
Experts agree the new research is interesting, but they note it has its limits.
