Vitamin D: Is There a New Era?
Reza Amani; PhD, R Nutr*1 & Nasrin Sharifi; PhD2
1 Food Security Research Center, Department. of Clinical Nutrition, School of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
2 Research Center for Biochemistry and Nutrition in Metabolic Diseases, Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran.
ARTICLE INFO |
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ABSTRACT |
MINI REVIEW |
Background: In recent decades, much interest has been focused on investigating new roles of vitamin D in human body beyond the mineral-ion homeostasis. Methods: By searching medical databases such as PubMed, over 16000 articles were found which have been published since 2000 on novel aspects of vitamin D in health and diseases. Results: Of great interest was the effects of vitamin D on decreasing the risk of several chronic illnesses, including common cancers, autoimmune, infectious, and cardiovascular diseases. In this review, the new roles of vitamin D that have recently been investigated were addressed. Conclusions: Due to the vast prevalence of vitamin D deficiency worldwide, it seems that time has come to conduct well-designed clinical trials and meta-analysis to explore the effectiveness of vitamin D supplementation in treatment of common diseases. Finally, the progression in cellular and molecular methods and technology will shed new lights on vitamin D roles in health and disease.
Keywords: Vitamin D; Antioxidant; Inflammation; Gastrointestinal diseases; Depression |
Article history:
Received: 11 Feb 2017
Revised: 11 Mar 2017
Accepted: 22 Apr 2017
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*Corresponding author:
r_amani@mail.mui.ac.ir
Food Security Research Center, Deptartment of Clinical Nutrition, School of Nutrition and Food, Sciences, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
Postal code: 8916188637
Tel: +98 916 313 9856 |
Vitamin D and chronic inflammation
Recently, non-calcemic functions of vitamin D, especially anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects have attracted much attention. The beneficial effect of vitamin D intake on high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) was investigated in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) (Figure 1) (Sharifi et al., 2014).It has been found that 1,25(OH)2D inhibits the T-helper1 response and may promote T-helper2 response, in other words, it could reduce production of inflammatory cytokines and induce anti-inflammatory response (Cantorna et al., 2004).
Antioxidant effects of vitamin D
The antioxidant role of vitamin D was initially proposed by Wiseman in 1993; it was sown that vitamin D3 and its active form 1,25(OH)2D3 inhibited iron dependent liposomal lipid peroxidation (Wiseman, 1993). The structural similarity of vitamin D compounds to cholesterol and ergosterol suggested for their membrane antioxidant ability (Wiseman, 1993). For the first time, it was found that improving vitamin D status in NAFLD patients could effectively reduce serum levels of Malondialdehyde (MDA) (Figure 2) (Sharifi et al., 2014).