Vitamin D deficiency doesn’t “explain” kidney disease
Thursday, November 12, 2009 16:31The 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.