Effect of Vitamin-D on Glycemic Parameters and Adiponectin in gestational diabetes

To determine the effect of Vitamin-D-supplementation on glycemic parameters: glucose levels in blood, insulin, HbA1c, HOMA-IR, and adiponectin in women with gestational diabetes.

An experimental study was executed at PGMI/LGH of Lahore from June 2020 to June 2021, with 34 Vitamin-D-deficient women who had gestational diabetes (20-26 weeks). All were aged between 21-32 years, randomly and equally divided into controls and cases. Cases received 200,000 IU Vitamin-D-dose. Fasting blood was collected before as well as after treatment from each participant. Spectrophotometry and peroxidase method were used to estimate HbA1c and glucose concentrations respectively. Insulin, adiponectin, and Vitamin-D were assessed by ELISA. To verify data normality, the Shapiro-Wilk test was applied and to prove group comparison Mann-Whitney U, Wilcoxon signed-rank, and Sample-t tests were used via IBM-SPSS version-21.

No difference in blood glucose was found between controls and cases before treatment (p=0.858), while post-treatment, significant reduction found in cases (p=0.019). Before treatment, no difference was noticed in insulin levels of both groups (p=0.44), however, post-treatment, a significant decline was expressed in cases (p=0.001). No difference was found in HOMA-IR between controls and cases before treatment (p=0.14) but post-treatment, significant reduction was observed in cases (p=0.001). Non-significant difference was noted in HbA1c before (p=0.664) and after (p=0.169) treatment in both groups. Non-significant upsurge in adiponectin was observed in cases before (p=0.544) and after (p=0.194) treatment.

Vitamin-D supplementation significantly improves glycemic control in gestational diabetic women, however, its effect on adiponectin was non-significant.