Vitamin D could help improve healing of diabetic foot ulcer

Vitamin D, the sunshine vitamin is synthesised in the body in the presence of sunlight. But there are certain foods like milk and milk products, mushrooms, eggs, fatty fish, etc, that can also provide the body with some Vitamin D. Unlike other vitamins, Vitamin D works like a hormone and each cell in your body has a receptor for Vitamin D.

It has been demonstrated that Vitamin D (25(OH)D) deficiency is associated with diabetes and with diabetic neuropathy. Some reports stated that vitamin D deficiency is also associated with diabetic foot ulcer and/or infection.

According to the new meta-analysis, there is an association between vitamin D (25(OH)D) deficiency and the presence of diabetic foot disease. Patients with diabetic ulcers or diabetic infection are at a higher risk of displaying severe vitamin D deficiency. Findings suggest that identifying patients with foot complications and supplementing them with vitamin D could prevent or improve the outcomes of diabetic foot complications. The meta-analysis has been published in the Journal Wound repair and regeneration.

The investigators selected 10 studies involving 1644 participants (mean age, 55.2±6.6 years) met eligibility criteria after a search across Medline, Embase, Scopus, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar. The outcomes were set to be either the serum 25(OH)D level or the prevalence of patients with 25(OH)D with severe deficiency.

• Overall, 817 patients had foot ulcers and 827 patients were without foot complications.


• Patients in foot ulcer vs control groups had:
  
  
  
  • lower serum vitamin D levels (13.7±3.7 vs 19.8±4.7 ng/mL; weighted mean differences [MD], −0.7 [95% CI, −0.804 to −0.585; I²=97.8%; P<.0001] vs −0.93 [95% CI, −1.684 to −0.174; I²=97.8%; P=.01]),
  
  
  • higher prevalence rate of severe vitamin D deficiency (52.5% [95% CI, 0.453-0.596; I²=56.5%] vs 23% [95% CI, 0.155-0.312; I²=75.3%]) and
  
  
  • severe vitamin D deficiency (OR, 3.6; 95% CI, 2.940-4.415; I²=40.9%; P<.0001).
  
  
  
  

The researchers concluded that supplementing with vitamin D could prevent or improve the outcomes of diabetic foot complications.