A study that was published of August 2020 online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, suggests that taking calcium and vitamin D twice a day may lessen your risk of experiencing vertigo once more.
According to J-I M S U Kim, MD, of Seoul National University College of Medicine in Korea, "our study suggests that for people with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, taking vitamin D and calcium is a simple, low-risk way to prevent vertigo from recurring." If you start with low vitamin D levels, it works especially well.
When your head position changes, and you suddenly feel like you're spinning, you have paroxysmal positional vertigo. One of the most common kinds of vertigo is this one. A doctor may perform a series of head movements to shift the particles in the ears that cause vertigo as part of the treatment, but the condition frequently recurs.
The study looked at 957 people in Korea who had benign paroxysmal positional vertigo and were successfully treated with head movements. About 86% of people with this type of vertigo report that it disrupts their daily lives or forces them to miss days at work. The 445 people in the intervention group had their vitamin D levels taken at the beginning of the study.
The participants were divided into two groups: observation and intervention. Supplements containing 400 international units of vitamin D and 500 milligrams of calcium twice daily were given to 348 people whose vitamin D levels were below 20 nanograms per milliliter (mg/mL). Supplements were not given to people whose vitamin D levels were greater than or equal to 20 mg/mL.
The 512 people in the observation group did not receive vitamin D supplements or have their levels monitored
After an average of one year, the recurrence rate of vertigo episodes was lower in the intervention group that took the supplements than in the observation group. The annual recurrence rate decreased by 24% for supplement users, from 1-10 times per person-year for those in the observation group to 0-83 times per person-year for those taking supplements.
At the beginning of the study, those who were more vitamin D deficient appeared to benefit more. The annual recurrence rate was 45 percent lower for those who started with vitamin D levels below 10 mg/mL, whereas it was only 14 percent lower for those who started with vitamin D levels between 10 and 20 mg/mL. Compared to 47% of those in the observation group, 38% of those in the interventional group experienced another episode of vertigo.
Our results are exciting because, up until now, the primary treatment for benign paroxysmal positional vertigo has been to visit the doctor and have them perform head movements, according to Kim. According to our research, vitamin D and calcium tablets, a low-cost and risky treatment, may be effective in preventing this prevalent and frequent disorder.
A significant number of participants dropped out of the study, with more people assigned to take supplements than to the observation group, which is a limitation of the study
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