Effect of vitamin D supplementation on patients with acne vulgaris: An intervention study

Abstract

Background: Acne is chronic inflammatory disease with formation of papules, pustules, and nodules. Vitamin-D is fat soluble vitamin with immunomodulatory function, helps reducing inflammation. Objectives: assess frequency of serum vitamin-D deficiency among acne vulgaris patients and the effect of vitamin-D supplementation on acne grading. Method: the study was conducted on two phases, phase I was a cross-sectional study included measuring serum vitamin D level for 80 acne patients attending dermatology clinic at Menoufia University Hospital. Phase II was an interventional case control study where studied acne patients with vitamin-D deficiency (66 patients) were randomly divided into two groups; one group (33 patients) were treated with free Oral vitamin-D 2000IU/ tablet daily for two months in addition to regular acne treatment. The other group (33 patients) received traditional treatment for acne without vitamin-D supplementation and both groups were followed up clinically for two months. Results: frequency of vitamin-D deficiency among studied patients was 82.5%, there was statistically significant relation between vitamin-D deficiency and severity of acne as 27.3% and 9.1% of them had grade 3& 4 acne respectively versus 7.1% and zero% among acne patients with normal vitamin D. Vitamin-D deficiency is significantly prevalent among female patients (98.4%), there was significant improvement in acne grading after vitamin-D supplementation. Conclusion: There is a significant relation between vitamin-D deficiency and severity of acne vulgaris and vitamin -D has a good role in management of acne. So. It is recommended to evaluate the serum level of vitamin D in acne patients and provide vitamin D supplementation to vitamin D deficient patients beside topical treatments for acne.

Correlation between Serum 25-Hydroxy Vitamin D Levels and the Severity of Acne Vulgaris

“…The sample size of the studies ranged from 15 to 150. The studies were conducted in South Korea,[ 6 ] Egypt,[ 13 15 16 17 18 19 20 ] Saudi Arabia,[ 12 ] and Iran [ Table 1 ]. [ 14 ]…”

“…Moreover, eight studies were case-control studies, one case-control combined with a randomized controlled trial study,[ 6 ] and one cross-sectional combined with a randomized controlled trial study [ Table 2 ]. [ 18 ]…”

“…[ 6 15 ] One study also stated that 82.5% of vitamin D deficiency occurred in the case group or acne patients. [ 18 ]…”

“…In addition, three of the studies mentioned above also gave an intervention in acne vulgaris patients by giving vitamin D supplementation for 2–3 months. [ 6 13 18 ] They generated the same outcome, which was elevation in serum 25(OH)D levels and improvement in acne severity compared to placebo. Significant improvement mainly showed by the reduction of inflammatory lesions in the group with vitamin D supplementation.…”