Effect of Vitamin D Replacement on Liver Enzymes in Patients with Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The relationship between vitamin D-deficiency and pathogenesis of non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases (NAFLD) has been always a controversial subject. The present study is aimed to investigate the effects of vitamin D on the reduction of liver enzymes and, then, compare its effects with those of diet and physical activities individually. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The present double-blinded randomized clinical trial was conducted at …..University of Medical Sciences in 2017. For this purpose, 80 patients with NAFLD and vitamin D-deficiency were randomly divided into two groups, namely intervention and control. Subsequently, the patients in both groups were provided with programs of diets and physical activities. The patients in the intervention group received, in addition to the given treatment, the vitamin at the dosage of (VIT-D/50000 unit) once per week for ten weeks. Afterwards, the data related to the clinical and demographic characteristics of both groups were collected and, then, compared with each other using statistical methods. RESULTS: The applied therapeutic interventions led to a significant reduction in the variables including AST, ALT, total cholesterol, and LDL-C in both groups (p < 0.05). As for the two indices of blood sugar and triglyceride, the control group exhibited significantly less variations (p < 0.05). C O N C L U S I O N: The obtained results showed that the administration of vitamin D had no considerable superiority over the diet and physical activities in terms of reducing the liver enzymes as well as other investigated parameters.

The Effects of Vitamin D Supplementation on Anthropometric and Biochemical Indices in Patients With Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

“…After title and abstract screening, 48 articles remained and after full-text review, 32 articles were excluded from the current study for different reasons. Thus, the final systematic review and meta-analysis was done on 16 papers ( Table 1 ) ( Sharifi et al, 2014 ; Foroughi et al, 2015 ; Barchetta et al, 2016 ; Foroughi et al, 2016 ; Nadjarzadeh et al, 2016 ; Sharifi et al, 2016 ; Lorvand Amiri et al, 2017 ; Sakpal et al, 2017 ; Dabbaghmanesh et al, 2018 ; Geier et al, 2018 ; Mansourian Hosseini et al, 2018 ; MOUODI et al, 2018 ; Hajiaghamohammadi et al, 2019 ; Hussain et al, 2019 ; Shidfar et al, 2019 ; Foroughi et al, 2014 ).…”

“…A meta-analysis indicated that supplementation with vitamin D significantly increased LDL-C and had not significant effect on TG and HDL-C in patients with CVDs ( Wang et al, 2012 ). One study found that vitamin D supplementation reduced LDL-C but no significant change was found on HDL-C ( Hajiaghamohammadi et al, 2019 ). In another study supplementation with vitamin D3 as 50,000 IU per week for 12 weeks in NAFLD had no significant effect on lipid profile and body composition ( Hussain et al, 2019 ).…”

“…Vitamin D receptor (VDR) is abundantly expressed on liver cells and this vitamin was reported to have an anti−inflammatory effect on liver ( Bozic et al, 2016 ). One study found that 50,000 IU/wk vitamin D supplementation for 10 weeks reduced AST and ALT in the intervention group compared with the control group ( Hajiaghamohammadi et al, 2019 ). The vitamin D supplementation for 48 weeks decreased liver enzyme in patients with NAFLD ( Geier et al, 2018 ).…”

“…Adiponectin increased liver insulin sensitivity and decreased glucose excretion from the liver which can lead to prevent of high blood sugar. It has been suggested that vitamin D regulates adiponectin gene expression in adipose tissue ( Hajiaghamohammadi et al, 2019 ). It seems that many factors may influence the effects of vitamin D on serum adiponectin such as differences in doses of vitamin D supplementation, follow−up duration, and VDR gene polymorphisms.…”

Steatosis regression assessed by cap after Vitamin ‘D’ supplementation in NAFLD patients with Vitamin ‘D’ deficiency

“…Since vitamin 'D' has anti-inflammatory properties, it has been proposed that it may act as an 'immune-modulator' to reduce inflammation and suppress both fibroblast proliferation and collagen production in the liver and also improve oxidative stress and prevent cellular damage in patients with NASH. Accordingly, vitamin 'D' supplementation may improve liver inflammation and decrease enzymes [32,36,37].…”