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(HealthDay News) – For patients with stable Crohn’s disease, vitamin D supplementation is associated with improvements in hand-grip strength, fatigue, and quality of life, according to a study presented at the annual Digestive Disease Week, held from May 18–21 in Orlando, FL.
To examine the effects of vitamin D supplementation on muscle function and on fatigue and quality of life, Tara C. Raftery, from Trinity College Dublin, and colleagues randomized 27 patients with Crohn’s disease in remission to receive 2,000 IU vitamin D/day or placebo.
The researchers found that serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) levels increased significantly among patients receiving vitamin D supplementation. Dominant and non-dominant hand-grip strengths were significantly higher in the vitamin D group post-intervention. At three months, patients with 25[OH]D levels ≥75nmol/L had significantly higher quality of life, compared with patients with levels below this cut-off. In addition, patients with 25(OH)D ≥75nmol/L exhibited significant improvements in the bowel and social domains of the Inflammatory Bowel Disease questionnaire, and also experienced significantly less fatigue, as measured by the Inflammatory Bowel Disease questionnaire and in each of the subdomains of the multi-fatigue inventory.
“These findings may have significant implications for these patients,” Raftery said in a statement. “These findings, to our knowledge, are the first to suggest potential benefits of vitamin D supplementation on muscle strength with corresponding benefits for fatigue and quality of life in Crohn’s disease. These findings, however, need to be confirmed in larger studies.”
