Vitamin D and Asthma
Friday, March 19, 2010 at 9:38AM
If you suffer from asthma, take note: the lower your levels of vitamin D, the worse your symptoms may be. What's more, low vitamin D levels also appear to influence how much benefit you'll receive from treatments - the lower the levels, the poorer the response to steroidal asthma medications. These results were demonstrated in a small study of 54 asthma patients at the National Jewish Health Center in Denver. The investigators suggested that vitamin D supplements might improve matters for patients with low levels of "D," but the study wasn't designed to test whether this intervention actually would work. However, it did show that vitamin D levels were also lowest among the patients who were the most overweight. The study was published in the Jan. 14, 2010, online edition of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. I recently raised my recommendation to 2,000 IU of vitamin D3 daily because of emerging evidence that the higher dose is more appropriate to help maintain optimum health. The asthma study adds to what we already know about the importance of vitamin D.