Heart • Cancer • Women • Men • Children • Senior • Wellness • Orthopedic • Work • Mental Health • Emergency • Diet/Exercise • Terms/Privacy

Health Library Home • Health News • Quizzes/Calculators • Glossaries/Printout Forms • En Español A-Z • Search Health Topics A-Z

Vitamin D Could Help Crohn's Disease

(January 28, 2010) - As research continues, scientists are finding that vitamin D (Read about "Vitamins & Minerals") or the lack of it can have significant effects on our health. A new study has found that vitamin D, readily available in supplements or cod liver oil, can counter the effects of Crohn's disease. (Read about "Crohn's Disease")

"Our data suggests, for the first time, that vitamin D deficiency can contribute to Crohn's disease," says endocrinologist Dr. John White, noting that people from northern countries, which receive less sunlight that is necessary for the fabrication of vitamin D by the human body, are particularly vulnerable to Crohn's disease.

Vitamin D, in its active form (1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D), is a hormone that binds to receptors in the body's cells. White's interest in vitamin D was originally in its effects in mitigating cancer. (Read about "Cancer: What It Is") Because his results kept pointing to vitamin D's effects on the immune system, specifically the innate immune system (Read about "The Immune System") that acts as the body's first defense against microbial invaders, he investigated Crohn's disease. "It's a defect in innate immune handling of intestinal bacteria that leads to an inflammatory response that may lead to an autoimmune condition," stresses White.

White and his team found that vitamin D acts directly on the beta defensin 2 gene, which encodes an antimicrobial peptide, and the NOD2 gene that alerts cells to the presence of invading microbes. Both Beta-defensin and NOD2 have been linked to Crohn's disease. If NOD2 is deficient or defective, it cannot combat invaders in the intestinal tract. (Read about "Digestive System")

The research appears in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.