Hi everybody,
In the past I have expressed my concern about supplementation with vitamin D, especially after carrying out a thorough review of the literature, and finding that the active form of vitamin D was highly immune-suppressive (suppressing pretty much all branches of immune system) . You can read this review here:
https://www.sfc-em-investigacion.com/download/file.php?id=1124
However, it is clear that vitamin D presents a pleimorphic effect , meaning that it acts differently at different dosages. Actually, physiological dosages of vitamin D are necessary to induce the secretion of natural anti-microbials which constitute a key part of our immune defence.
Well, I have just read a couple of very insightful studies, which shed some light to the question of what level of vitamin D is then advisable:
Interestingly, it seems that, increasing the plasma levels of 25-OH-vitamin D up to 65 ng/dl does significantly increase the anti-tumoral effects of NK cells:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30132083/
The same was shown by the same group of scientists for macrophages cytotoxicity:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25855493
This fits with the finding of this study where people with levels of 25-OH-vitamin D higher than 55 ng/mL showed up to 3.1 times less infection rates by SARS-COV-2:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239252
It's Important to note that when levels of vitamin D were raised up to 94.1 ng/dL, the functionality of NKs did decrease, so, it seems that there is a "sweet spot" level of vitamin D which maximizes the antiviral and anti-cancerous effets of the immune system, with no immune-suppressive effects. And this level could be around 65 ng/dL in plasma.
Hope this is useful,
Sergio
In the past I have expressed my concern about supplementation with vitamin D, especially after carrying out a thorough review of the literature, and finding that the active form of vitamin D was highly immune-suppressive (suppressing pretty much all branches of immune system) . You can read this review here:
https://www.sfc-em-investigacion.com/download/file.php?id=1124
However, it is clear that vitamin D presents a pleimorphic effect , meaning that it acts differently at different dosages. Actually, physiological dosages of vitamin D are necessary to induce the secretion of natural anti-microbials which constitute a key part of our immune defence.
Well, I have just read a couple of very insightful studies, which shed some light to the question of what level of vitamin D is then advisable:
Interestingly, it seems that, increasing the plasma levels of 25-OH-vitamin D up to 65 ng/dl does significantly increase the anti-tumoral effects of NK cells:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30132083/
The same was shown by the same group of scientists for macrophages cytotoxicity:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25855493
This fits with the finding of this study where people with levels of 25-OH-vitamin D higher than 55 ng/mL showed up to 3.1 times less infection rates by SARS-COV-2:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239252
It's Important to note that when levels of vitamin D were raised up to 94.1 ng/dL, the functionality of NKs did decrease, so, it seems that there is a "sweet spot" level of vitamin D which maximizes the antiviral and anti-cancerous effets of the immune system, with no immune-suppressive effects. And this level could be around 65 ng/dL in plasma.
Hope this is useful,
Sergio