Vitamin D and Inflammatory Bowel Disease
The odds of successfully treating inflammatory bowel diseases such as Chron’s, Colitis, ileitis, etc may in part depend on your levels of vitamin D.
Following up previous research that indicated a role for vitamin D in inflammatory bowel diseases, researchers in Boston analyzed data from 173 patients focusing on their vitamin D status and the level of success with treatment.
They found a clear link between vitamin D status and remission of the disease, with those with normal vitamin D levels at the start of treatment more than 2.5-times as likely to go into remission after three months of treatment with anti-TNF medication, a common treatment for inflammatory conditions.
“These results show a significant association between vitamin D levels and rates of remission among patients with IBD. Specifically, patients who had low vitamin D levels prior to treatment had decreased odds of being in remission after three months of treatment”
The authors concluded that vitamin D levels may influence initial response to medication and that low vitamin D levels may pre-dispose patients to decreased odds of remission.
