Low Vitamin D Status May Be Linked To Higher Disease Activity And ESR In SLE.

Following the discovery that vitamin D receptors are expressed by immune cells, vitamin D's potential role in regulating the immune response has attracted attention, noted researchers led by Kristy Yap, MBBS, of the Centre for Inflammatory Diseases at Monash University, Melbourne. Deficiency of this vitamin has been associated with several autoimmune diseases including multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, type 1 diabetes mellitus, and SLE. A recent study, for example, showed that vitamin D3 inhibits dendritic cell maturation and expression of IFN-induced genes in SLE patients. In systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) low vitamin D status is associated with higher disease activity and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), while over time, an increase in serum vitamin D levels correlates with reduced SLE activity. http://www.medpagetoday.com/Rheumatology/Lupus/51030