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Published: Feb 13, 2014
By Kristina Fiore, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
High-dose vitamin D might tame symptoms of chronic hives, researchers found.
High-dose vitamin D might tame symptoms of chronic hives, researchers found.
In a randomized trial, patients who took 4,000 IU/day of vitamin D3 on top of their allergy medications had a greater reduction in urticaria severity scores than those who received just 600 IU/day, Jill Poole, MD, of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and colleagues reported online in the Annals of Allergy Asthma and Immunology.
They randomized 42 patients — mostly white females — with chronic urticaria to high- or low-dose vitamin D3 supplementation in addition to standard triple-drug therapy with cetirizine, ranitidine, and montelukast for 12 weeks.
Although high-dose vitamin D didn’t meet the trial’s primary outcome of reducing allergy medication use, it did improve symptoms to a greater extent than the recommended daily intake of vitamin D.
In the first week, both groups saw a 33% decrease in symptoms. But only the high-dose vitamin D group saw a further reduction in symptoms (40%) by the end of the study.
The researchers said the difference likely has something to do with vitamin D’s regulation of the immune system.
They concluded that adding high-dose vitamin D3 to allergy drug regimens “should be considered a safe and potentially beneficial immunomodulator in patients with chronic urticaria.”