The Effect of Treatment of Vitamin D Deficiency on the Level of P-Selectin and hs-CRP in Patients With Thromboembolism: A Pilot Randomized Clinical Trial.

Despite the known role of vitamin D deficiency in development of thrombosis, no studies have evaluated the impact of treating of vitamin D deficiency on the markers of thrombosis. A pilot randomized clinical trial was done on 40 vitamin D-deficient patients with deep vein thrombosis (DVT) or pulmonary embolism (PE). The intervention group received an oral dose of 50,000 IU vitamin D3 every week for 8 weeks, followed by 1 pearl every 2 weeks for 4 weeks (a total of 3 months), while the control group did not receive vitamin D. Then, P-selectin and hs-CRP were measured at baseline and 1 and 3 months after the intervention. There was no significant decrease in hs-CRP in either group after 1 month (P = .955) or after 3 months (P = .525). Likewise, there was no significant decrease in P-selectin between the 2 groups after 1 month (P = .921) or 3 months (P = .795). The results indicated that treatment of vitamin D deficiency had no significant effect on hs-CRP or P-selectin after 3 months among DVT/PE patients. However, treatment of vitamin D deficiency in these patients resulted in the control of the international normalized ratio (INR) with the lower doses of warfarin. This observation is the first clinical report of enhancement of the anticoagulant effect of warfarin by the supplementing of vitamin D. Larger trials are needed to clearly show the effect of treating of vitamin D deficiency on thrombosis.

A review of Vitamin D effects on common respiratory diseases: Asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and tuberculosis.

Despite the classic role of Vitamin D in skeletal health, new aspects of Vitamin D have been discovered in tissues and organs other than bones. Epidemiological and observational studies demonstrate a link between Vitamin D deficiency and risk of developing respiratory diseases including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and tuberculosis (TB). To review the literature, we searched the terms "Vitamin D" (using the set operator) and "asthma," "COPD" and "TB" in electronic databases, including PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus, and Google Scholar until July 2015. Non-English articles or articles with unavailable full text were excluded. Both in vivo and in vitro studies were included. All the reviewed articles state that Vitamin D deficiency is very common among patients with respiratory diseases. The present data regarding Vitamin D and asthma is still controversial, but data about COPD and TB are more encouraging. The relevant studies have been conducted in different populations therefore it is not particularly possible to compare the data due to genetic variations. In order to point out a role for Vitamin D, large clinical trials with Vitamin D deficient subjects and sufficient Vitamin D supplementation are needed.