Could vitamin D3 help treatment of intractable asthma?
A fairly complex piece of basic research picked up today by the BBC and other media sources suggests that vitamin D3 supplements may improve corticosteroid sensitivity in patients with severe asthma. The authors of the study have previously shown that T-cells in the immune system secrete IL-10, a cytokine that inhibits the immune responses that cause the symptoms of asthma and allergic disease, in the presence of dexamethasone and calcitriol (D3). In this study, they show that IL-10 secreting T-cells inhibit secretion of other pro-inflammatory cytokines in patients with asthma. They also investigated in vitro the effects of calcitriol on IL-10 production by T-cells from patients with steroid resistant asthma. The results of this section of the research indicate that in such patients, dexamethasone alone does not stimulate IL-10 production whereas dexamethasone plus calcitriol does. Finally, they show that administration of calcitriol to both healthy individuals and patients with steroi
