Vitamin D Status and Its Relation to Inflammatory Markers in Patients with Mild to Moderate Ulcerative Colitis

BACKGROUND Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Crohn’s disease (CD), and ulcerative colitis (UC) are autoimmune inflammatory diseases of the alimentary tract, which seems to be caused by the interaction of environmental and genetic factors as well as diet and nutritional factors such as vitamin D. The aim of this study was to assess the vitamin D status and its associations with erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) as inflammatory markers in patients with UC. METHODS In this analytical cross-sectional study 90 patients with mild to moderate UC who were resident of Tehran were assessed. 25(OH)D, parathyroid hormone (PTH), ESR and hs-CRP were measured. Dietary intake was assessed by 3-day 24h diet recall. Statistical analyses were performed using STATA (Version 12). RESULTS The average serum 25-OH-vitamin D3 was 33.1±8.3 ng/mL and 38.9 % of the patients were vitamin D deficient or insufficient (37.3 % of men and 41% of women). No significant correlation between serum 25(OH)D and hs-CRP, ESR, body mass index (BMI), and disease duration was found. There were no significant differences in serum 25(OH)D between men and women. Mean daily dietary vitamin D and calcium intakes were 189.5 Iu (95% CI: 176.0-203.1) and 569.5 mg (95% CI: 538.8-600.2) respectively. CONCLUSION In this cross-sectional study 38.9% of the patients with mild to moderate UC were vitamin D deficient or insufficient and vitamin D level was not correlated to ESR and/or hs-CRP. More studies are needed to investigate the effect of vitamin D in the pathogenesis of UC or as a part of its treatment.