Is Asthma a Vitamin Deficiency: Vitamin-D Uses You Didn’t Expect

Reader Contribution by Chelsea Clark
Published on February 6, 2015
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If you’ve tried everything to get your asthma under control with no success, you could have a common vitamin deficiency. A new study published in the journal Allergy confirms the long-held suspicion that vitamin D might play a role in asthma.

The study found that among 21,237 asthmatic patients, those people with lower levels of vitamin D had more symptom flare-ups, while those with sufficient levels of vitamin D had fewer. People who were deficient in vitamin D (less than 25nmol/l) were 22 percent more likely to have an exacerbation of asthma symptoms.[1] These results are similar to previous findings that the severity and frequency of asthma flare-ups and rates of uncontrolled asthma were worse for people deficient in vitamin D.[2,3] Why might vitamin D help asthma?

There are many vitamin-D uses in the body, including immune system regulation. As dysfunction of the immune system causes asthma symptoms in the first place, vitamin D likely helps by modulating the activity of the immune system to keep asthma under control.[1]

Although further studies are needed to determine the role of vitamin-D supplementation in asthma attack treatment and prevention, researchers believe that “vitamin-D replacement therapy could be an inexpensive way to decrease severe asthma exacerbations . . . improving the quality of life for asthmatic patients.”[2]

Correcting a Vitamin-D Deficiency

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