Influence of Vitamin D Deficiency on Inflammatory Markers and Clinical Disease Activity in IBD Patients

Vitamin D has recently been discovered to be a potential immune modulator. Low serum vitamin D levels have been associated with risk of relapse and exacerbation of clinical outcomes in Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). A retrospective, longitudinal study was conducted to determine the association between vitamin D levels and inflammatory markers and clinical disease activity in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In addition, circulating 25(OH)D₃ progression was evaluated according to vitamin D supplementation. Participants were separated into three groups according to their vitamin D level: severe deficiency (SD), moderate deficiency (MD) and sufficiency (S). Serum 25(OH)D₃ was inversely correlated with faecal calprotectin (FC) for CD and UC but was only correlated with C-reactive protein (CRP) for UC patients. In the multivariate analysis of FC, CRP and fibrinogen (FBG), we predicted the presence of a patient in the SD group with 80% accuracy. A deficiency of 25(OH)D₃ was associated with increased hospitalisations, flare-ups, the use of steroids and escalating treatment. Supplemental doses of vitamin D were likely to be insufficient to reach adequate serum levels of 25(OH)D₃. Vitamin D intervention studies are warranted to determine whether giving higher doses of vitamin D in IBD might reduce intestinal inflammation or disease activity.