Recent research by the University of South Australia found evidence that vitamin D deficiency is associated with an increased risk for dementia and stroke.

For the study, a team of scientists performed an analysis of genetic data from around 295,000 participants in the UK Biobank biomedical database. They measured variations in participants’ genes to find how a decreased vitamin D level impacted a person’s neuroimaging of the brain and the risk for dementia and stroke.

Lead author Prof. Elina Hyppönen, director of the Australian Centre for Precision Health at the University of South Australia, says: “Indeed, it has been very difficult to prove the effects of vitamin D on brain health or other diseases, in large part as clinical trials in people who are clinically vitamin D deficient would not be ethical to conduct.”