This evidence brief is not medical advice. It is a source-linked literature search draft for research and writing workflows. Always inspect the original papers before citing or applying any finding.
Research question
Does vitamin D improve depressive symptoms?
Short answer
The returned literature should be checked for baseline deficiency, dose, depression scale, and whether the paper reports supplementation outcomes.
Search conditions and results
- Claim searched: Vitamin D supplementation may improve depressive symptoms.
- Search intent: Find source-linked biomedical papers about vitamin D and depressive symptoms.
- Result set: Top source-linked biomedical papers returned by LitSource for this claim.
- Last refreshed: 2026-05-04
Top papers found
| Paper | Year | Journal | Source | Evidence snippet |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Effect of vitamin D supplementation on the incidence and prognosis of depression: An updated meta-analysis based on randomized controlled trials. | 2022 | Frontiers in public health | PMID 35979473 | According to previous studies, BMI appeared to have an essential mediating role in the relationship between vitamin D and depression, and vitamin D supplements might improve depressive symptoms in obese patients. |
| Effect of vitamin D supplementation on depressive symptoms and psychological wellbeing in healthy adult women: a double-blind randomised controlled clinical trial. | 2018 | Journal of nutritional science | PMID 30197783 | These results suggest that vitamin D supplementation to prevent depressive symptoms and anxiety, or improve flourishing or mood, for healthy adult women over winter may not be warranted. |
| Associations between Dietary Intake of Vitamin D, Sun Exposure, and Generalized Anxiety among College Women. | 2022 | Nutrients | PMID 36558485 | Using the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale-17, Revised Social Anhedonia Scale, Revised Physical Anhedonia Scale, and the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale-14, the researchers found that, while there were no significant diff… |
| Vitamin D supplementation for depressive symptoms: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. | 2014 | Psychosomatic medicine | PMID 24632894 | Although it is difficult to detect treatment effects in those with few, if any, baseline depressive symptoms, we nonetheless included studies of both nondepressed and depressed individuals because of our interest in det… |
| Meta-analysis of the effect of vitamin D on depression. | 2025 | Frontiers in psychiatry | PMID 40821024 | Conclusion: Our findings indicate that vitamin D supplementation is associated with a moderate but statistically significant improvement in depressive symptoms. |
| Depression and Vitamin D: A Peculiar Relationship. | 2022 | Cureus | PMID 35637805 | Hogberg et al. concluded a positive association between vitamin D supplementation and improvement of depressive symptoms in depressed adolescents with low serum 25(OH)D in Sweden. |
| The effect of vitamin D supplementation on depression: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. | 2024 | Psychological medicine | PMID 39552387 | Of note, vitamin D supplementation resulted in a larger improvement in depressive symptoms in those with a history of depression (SMD: -0.57, 95% CI -0.69 to -0.44; n = 15 trials) (xTable 1). |
| The effect of vitamin D supplementation on depression: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. | 2024 | Psychological medicine | PMID 39552387 | Our dose-response meta-analysis of randomized trials demonstrated that vitamin D supplementation may result in a large improvement in depressive symptoms at follow-up shorter than 24 weeks. |
What the evidence appears to support
The papers above were returned by a source-linked LitSource search for this claim. Treat them as candidate evidence: inspect the highlighted snippet, then open the original paper before citing.
What remains uncertain
This draft does not rank clinical certainty, replace systematic review methods, or decide whether the claim should be used in patient care. Check study design, population, intervention details, effect size, and recency before using any citation.
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