Vitamin D for your patients with chronic hepatitis C?

Adeeb H Rahman, Andrea D Branch

Division of Liver Diseases, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY 10029, USA.

Journal of hepatology 2013 Jan

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Vitamin D is increasingly becoming recognized as an important physiological regulator with pleiotropic functions outside of its classical role in skeletal homeostasis. A growing body of clinical evidence highlights the prevalence and risks of vitamin D deficiency in patients suffering from chronic hepatitis C infection, and vitamin D supplementation has been proposed as an adjunct to current standards of care. This review considers the experimental evidence for the anti-inflammatory, antifibrotic and antiviral effects of vitamin D, and discusses the therapeutic potential of vitamin D supplementation to protect against liver disease progression and improve responses to treatment. Copyright © 2012 European Association for the Study of the Liver. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.