Vitamin D Deficiency Promotes Flare-Ups In Ulcerative Colitis

Vitamin D deficiency has many negative health effects. Even with chronic inflammatory bowel diseases, you should therefore pay attention to a healthy vitamin D level – according to a study by the Harvard Medical School. Because if patients with ulcerative colitis have too little vitamin D in their blood, the risk of suffering another attack more quickly increases. Patients with higher vitamin D levels, on the other hand, remain in remission longer. Therefore, check your vitamin D levels and build them up again if there is a deficiency.

Low vitamin D levels in ulcerative colitis

Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) — one of Harvard University’s teaching hospitals — found that lower levels of vitamin D in the blood increase the risk of a flare-up in patients with ulcerative colitis. Ulcerative colitis is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease in which ulcers form in the lining of the large intestine. Relapses are accompanied by severe diarrhea and have a huge impact on quality of life.

Low vitamin D levels are regularly measured in patients with active ulcerative colitis. But it was previously unclear whether these low levels can also increase the risk of a flare-up.

Low vitamin D levels: a consequence or cause of flare-ups in ulcerative colitis
Previous studies in patients suffering from Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis had already linked low vitamin D levels to disease flares,” said study author Alan Moss, MD, a gastroenterologist, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

However, we didn’t know whether the flare-ups lead to low vitamin D levels or whether the low vitamin D levels cause or contribute to the flare-ups. So we checked vitamin D levels in remission (when the disease is dormant) and followed the patients for 12 months to see how vitamin D levels affected disease progression.”

Vitamin D protects against flare-ups in ulcerative colitis

The study participants were 70 patients with ulcerative colitis who were in remission. Vitamin D levels were measured, as were levels of inflammatory markers, which were found not only through blood tests but also through biopsies. The researchers were then able to show that those patients who had an attack had lower vitamin D levels than those who remained healthy.

Patients who had higher levels of vitamin D during periods of remission were less likely to flare up,” said Dr. John Gubatan, MD, BIDMC and lead author of the study, published in February 2017 in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. “It shows us that higher vitamin D levels play a role in preventing an ulcerative colitis flare.”

Your vitamin D level should be above 35 ng/ml

The threshold that appeared to have a protective effect was above 35 ng/ml vitamin D. Now Gubatan and Moss want to investigate the link between cathelicidin and vitamin D. Cathelicidin is an endogenous protein with an antibiotic effect that protects the intestinal mucosa from pathogens, helps regulate the intestinal flora and in this way protects the intestinal barrier.

The levels of cathelicidin are often too low, especially in chronic inflammatory diseases. Vitamin D is believed to increase the amount of cathelicidin and may be beneficial in ulcerative colitis in this way.