VITAMIN D : INTERESTINNON-SKELETALPATHOLOGIES.
Etienne CAVALIER
Department of Clinical Chemistry
University of Liège, University Hospital of Liège Domaine du Sart-Tilman
B-4000, Liège BELGIUM.
The role of vitamin D (VTD) in maintaining bone health has been known for decades.
Recently, however, the discovery that many tissues expressed the VTD receptor and were able to transform the 25-OH VTD into its most active metabolite, 1,25-(OH)2 VTD, has led to a very promising future for this “old” molecule. Indeed, observational studies, and more and more interventional studies, are raising the importance of a significant VTD supplementation for not-only skeletal benefits. Amongst them, 25-OH VTD has been found to play an
important role in preventing from many diseases, like cancers [1], risk of falls in the elderly [2;3], cardiovascular diseases [4], diabetes [5], infections [6] and even total mortality [7]. Vitamin D deficiency, defined as serum 25-OH VTD levels <30 ng/ml, is very common in our populations. The ratio cost/benefit and the recently published studies are clearly now in favour of a controlled and efficient vitamin D supplementation in these patients presenting a 25-OH VTD level < 30 ng/ml. More attention should also be paid for pregnant and lactating women, as well as children and adolescents.
Reference List
1. Lappe JM, Travers-Gustafson D, Davies KM, Recker RR, Heaney RP. Vitamin D and calcium supplementation reduces cancer risk: results of a randomized trial. Am J Clin Nutr 2007; 85:1586-91.
2. Bischoff-Ferrari HA, Dawson-Hughes B, Willett WC et al. Effect of Vitamin D on falls: a meta-analysis. JAMA 2004; 291:1999-2006.
3. Bischoff-Ferrari HA, Willett WC, Wong JB, Giovannucci E, Dietrich T, Dawson-Hughes B. Fracture prevention with vitamin D supplementation: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. JAMA 2005; 293:2257-64.
4. Giovannucci E, Liu Y, Hollis BW, Rimm EB. 25-hydroxyvitamin D and risk of
myocardial infarction in men: a prospective study. Arch Intern Med 2008; 168:1174-80. 5. Hypponen E, Laara E, Reunanen A, Jarvelin MR, Virtanen SM. Intake of vitamin D and
risk of type 1 diabetes: a birth-cohort study. Lancet 2001; 358:1500-3.
6. Liu PT, Stenger S, Li H et al. Toll-like receptor triggering of a vitamin D-mediated human antimicrobial response. Science 2006; 311:1770-3.
7. Autier P, Gandini S. Vitamin D supplementation and total mortality: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Arch Intern Med 2007; 167:1730-7.
