Vitamin D3 supplementation in women practicing orthodox religious and intermittent fasting: A controlled study with formulation-specific effects
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Vitamin D deficiency is prevalent among monastic Orthodox populations, likely due to their sartorial habits and religious fasting rules. Data on supplementation in similar populations are lacking, including responses in restoring vitamin D sufficiency and to specific formulations of vitamin D supplements. This controlled study evaluated the efficacy of a daily oral vitamin D regimen, using oil-based drops and tablets, in restoring vitamin D status in a population of Orthodox nuns from Northern Greece, as well as assessing potential formulation-specific effects in the context of vitamin D supplementation. Methods: A total of 41 Orthodox nuns practicing intermittent fasting received a daily dose of 2.500 IU vitamin D3 in either oil-based drops or tablets for 16 weeks and were compared to 40 matched controls without supplementation. Serum concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D], parathyroid hormone (PTH), calcium, and albumin were measured at baseline and after 16 weeks in both groups. Results: In the supplemented group, mean serum 25(OH)D concentrations increased significantly from 21.44 ± 9.08 ng/mL to 34.27 ± 10.33 ng/mL (p = 0.022), while PTH decreased from 66.18 ± 21.31 pg/mL to 50.71 ± 15.92 pg/mL (p = 0.018). The control group showed no significant changes in either 25(OH)D (23.90 ± 7.11 vs. 26.53 ± 9.14 ng/mL, p = 0.067) or PTH (41.75 ± 15.74 vs. 40.11 ± 13.56 pg/mL, p = 0.415). Multivariate regression-adjusting for baseline 25(OH)D, BMI, and body fat percentage-indicated that the form of supplementation (tablet vs. drops) was not an independent predictor of the change in vitamin D concentrations (β = +2.77, p = 0.456). The only statistically significant predictor was baseline 25(OH)D (β = -0.63, p < 0.001). Conclusions: A daily regimen of oral vitamin D3, administered as either drops or tablets, is effective in significantly improving vitamin D status and reducing PTH concentrations in women adhering to intermittent fasting religious practices. These findings support targeted supplementation strategies in at-risk fasting populations, particularly those with vitamin D deficiency, regardless of the form of oral supplementation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".