Vitamin D, Immune Regulation, the Microbiota, and Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Overview

Journal Exp Biol Med (Maywood)

Specialty Biology

Date 2014 Mar 27

PMID 24668555

Citations 57

Authors

Margherita T Cantorna

Kaitlin McDaniel

Stephanie Bora

Jing Chen

Jamaal James

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The inflammatory bowel diseases are complex diseases caused by environmental, immunological, and genetic factors. Vitamin D status is low in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases, and experimental inflammatory bowel diseases are more severe in vitamin D-deficient or vitamin D receptor knockout animals. Vitamin D is beneficial in inflammatory bowel diseases because it regulates multiple checkpoints and processes essential for homeostasis in the gut. Vitamin D inhibits IFN-γ and IL-17 production while inducing regulatory T cells. In addition, vitamin D regulates epithelial cell integrity, innate immune responses, and the composition of the gut microbiota. Overall, vitamin D regulates multiple pathways that maintain gastrointestinal homeostasis. The data support improving vitamin D status in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases.

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