Vitamin D deficiency doesn’t “explain” kidney disease

Thursday, November 12, 2009 16:31
Comments Off on Vitamin D deficiency doesn’t “explain” kidney disease

The winner of this week's Most Misleading Medical Headline Award is:

Low Vitamin D Level Explains Most End-Stage Renal Disease Risk in African Americans

I beg to differ. 

African Americans are more likely to have low vitamin D levels. They are also more likely to suffer from kidney disease. The correlation between these two facts appears strong. However, this "explains" nothing.  There's no evidence to show that vitamin D deficiency causes kidney disease–nor any proposed mechanism to explain how it might do this. And, as the investigators themselves point out, no evidence that raising vitamin D levels will reduce this risk.

Maybe I need to create a new category for these posts: Good research, badly reported.

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