Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have found that vitamin D taken by mouth helps correct an immune defect in people with eczema (atopic dermatitis).
They studied a small number of patients with moderate to severe atopic dermatitis, a chronic skin disease that affects 10–20% of children and 1–3% of adults. It causes itching, redness and scaling; over time, constant scratching causes chronic changes and raises the risk of skin infection with staphylococcus, herpes and pox viruses.
An immune defect is known to affect the skin's ability to make peptides called cathelicidins, which protect it from invading microbes. In many skin diseases, including eczema, low cathelicidin raises the chance of infection.
The study included 14 people with atopic dermatitis and 14 healthy people, all given 4,000 units of vitamin D a day for 21 days. Skin biopsies before and after showed that vitamin D corrected the low cathelicidin production in the patients.
This small study suggests vitamin D could help in skin disease, but more research is needed, including on long-term vitamin D treatment and whether it is enough to prevent infections in people with eczema.
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