SUMMARY
Inflammatory bowel diseases are a group of chronic inflammatory conditions that affect gastrointestinal tract due to inapt and continuous immune activation in response to a myriad of predisposing factors (most notably genetics, environmental impact and gut microbiota composition). It has been shown that vitamin D status can also play a role in the disease pathogenesis, as its deficiency is commonly observed in two major forms of inflammatory bowel diseases – Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Mounting evidence supports the concept of intricate relationship between gut dysbiosis and vitamin D metabolism, while suboptimal levels of this vitamin have been linked to increased clinical disease relapse rates, inadequate response to drugs, as well as decreased quality of life in patients with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Consequently, the pertinent question is whether increased vitamin D supplementation and (on a population level) food fortification may bring significant benefit to the affected individuals. In this short review we discuss the synthesis, functions, status and food sources of vitamin D, appraise biotechnological facets of vitamin D status analysis and food fortification, and concentrate on novel developments in the field that describe its influence on intestinal microbiota and inflammatory bowel disease.
Introduction: Familial Chylomicronemia Syndrome (FCS) is a rare autosomal recessive disease where functional loss of lipoprotein lipase results in severe hypertriglyceridemia. Patients often experience recurrent acute pancreatitis, a life-threatening disease. Serum triglycerides (TGs) are physiologically elevated several folds during pregnancy, which especially endanger patients with FCS to develop hypertriglyceridemic pancreatitis (HP) and complications like miscarriage. Despite the development of new drugs for FCS, their safety in pregnancy has not yet been confirmed and their treatment represents a big challenge.
Clinical Case: A 30-year women was hospitalized for planned reevaluation while 22 weeks pregnant. She was diagnosed with FCS at the age of one month with failure to thrive, jaundice and lipemic blood serum (homozygous for the LPL gene variation C.1019-2A>T). During childhood she was treated with low-fat diet with average TG levels 10–15 mmol/l (n<1,7 mmol/l). In the past five years, she was hospitalized for HP five times due to loss of compliance to diet (serum TGs > 30 mmol/l). The last episode of HP was provoked by pregnancy and resulted in miscarriage. At the admission, the patient was asymptomatic, with BMI:18,5 kg/m2, TGs: 32,2 mmol/l (n<1,7 nmol/l), lipase: 21 U/L (n<60 U/L). Gynecology status and child growth parameters were normal. Due to inability to achieve lower TG levels plasmapheresis was started two times per week. The overall mean of pre plasmapheresis values of TGs were 21,68 nmol/l (ranging from 15,9 to 26,3 nmol/l) and post plasmapheresis were 7,15 mmol/L (ranging from 4,9 to 9,9 mmol/l). Due to the frequent need for plasmapheresis and high risk pregnancy, the patient was transferred to the Gynecology department. The patient had no adverse reactions and fetal monitoring was performed before, during and after procedure with no abnormalities registered. Plasmapheresis was performed using Spectra OPTIA via peripheral veins with 5% albumin replacement, proceeded by 250-500ml of 0.9% saline infusion. At 40th gestational week Cesarean section was performed and a healthy baby boy (weight: 3540 g, lenght: 49 cm) was born with Apgar score 10/10. We followed baby boy the first five years of the childhood. So far the patient has not experienced HP and the baby boy has normal levels of TGs.
Conclusion: Our case showed a succesfull pregnancy outcome in female patient with FCS achieved by multidisciplinary approach including plasmapheresis. For the first time therapeutic plasmaferesis was used in order to prevent pancreatitis and potential complications for both mother and child.
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