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Study: Vitamin D has no effect on knee osteoarthritis
Medical expert of the article
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
Scientists conducted randomized trials to find out whether taking vitamin D helps relieve symptoms of knee osteoarthritis.
For two years, patients with signs of osteoarthritis of the knee joint took vitamin D. As a result, it turned out that its use does not affect the degenerative disease of the knee joint. Specialists did not find a significant difference between the condition of patients taking vitamin D and placebo.
" Osteoarthritis of the knee is a consequence of 'wear and tear' of the joints and is the most common type of arthritis," the researchers say. "It is a progressive disease that affects the articular cartilage and causes bone growths around the joint. Osteoarthritis has a negative impact on a person's daily life, is accompanied by pain and in some cases requires endoprosthetics."
Unfortunately, there are no treatments that can influence the course of the disease, but some studies have shown that vitamin D can protect against structural changes in the affected joint.
Dr. Timothy McAlindon of Tufts University in Boston and his team conducted a clinical trial to examine the effects and association of vitamin D with reducing the symptomatic and structural progression of knee osteoarthritis.
One hundred and forty-six people with symptomatic (clinical) manifestations of osteoarthritis of the knee joints took part in the study. The average age of the patients was 62 years and 61 percent of the participants were men. The experiment began in March 2006 and lasted until 2009.
Participants were randomly divided into two groups, one of which received placebo, and the other received cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) at 2000 IU/day, with a gradual increase in the dose.
Scientists recorded changes in knee pain using a twenty-point scale, where 0 is no pain and 20 is severe pain.
Knee cartilage volume loss was measured using magnetic resonance imaging.
At the start of the study, the average condition of patients in the group that received cholecalciferol was worse than in the group that received placebo.
The researchers found that knee pain decreased in both groups, but vitamin D supplementation did not make a significant difference.
Thus, taking into account the results of this clinical trial and the overall data, the researchers concluded that vitamin D supplementation does not have a significant effect on the symptomatic and structural progression of knee osteoarthritis.
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