Originally published January 6 2006
Vitamin D3 offers some relief to asthma sufferers who do not respond to steroids
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
King's College London has conducted a study that found that doses of vitamin D3 can aid those patients suffering from severe forms of asthma who have not responded to other treatments like steroid inhalers.
VITAMIN supplements could be used to help treat asthma sufferers who do not respond to traditional steroid inhalers or tablets.
Scientists at King's College London have found that daily doses of vitamin D3 could substantially improve the responsiveness of such patients - who have an increased risk of dying from asthma attacks - to steroid treatment.
Asthma is usually treated with inhaled steroids, but for some patients taking steroid tablets is the only way of controlling their condition.
A sub-group of people with severe asthma show no improvement, even with high doses of oral steroids, making the condition difficult to treat.
"This research is exciting and points towards potential new strategies for reversing steroid resistance," he said.
The results, which have been published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, show that steroid treatments work by partly inducing patients' T-cells - pivotal in activating the body's immune system - to create a molecule called IL-10, which inhibits the immune responses responsible for the symptoms of allergic and asthmatic reactions.
Unlike T-cells from healthy individuals or patients who respond to steroid treatments, T-cells taken from patients who are steroid-resistant did not produce IL-10 when cultured in a petri dish with the steroid dexamethasone.
However, the researchers found that adding vitamin D3 to the culture along with dexamethasone reversed this problem, enabling the previously steroid-resistant cells to respond to the treatment by producing IL-10 to the same extent as T-cells taken from patients who were steroid-responsive.
They took daily vitamin D3 supplements for seven days, after which the researchers took blood samples to assess whether the patients' T-cells had increased their response to the steroid.
Dr Hawrylowicz said: "We now need to test the benefits of this treatment in the clinic, and we are putting a proposal together to carry out this work.
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