March 13, 2018

The December 2017 issue of Advances in Clinical and Experimental Medicine, reported the outcome of a study that found greater eradication rates for Helicobacter pylori infection among subjects with sufficient levels of vitamin D in comparison with deficient levels.

Helicobacter pylori is a bacterium that colonizes the human stomach. Its causative role in the development of chronic gastritis, peptic ulcers, mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma and gastric cancer makes its successful eradication of critical importance in affected individuals.

The current study included 220 men and women diagnosed with H. pylori gastritis. Blood samples collected before treatment were tested for serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 levels. All patients were treated for 14 days with H. pylori eradication therapy (bismuth subcitrate, pantoprazole, tetracycline and metronidazole). Four weeks after the completion of therapy, participants were tested for the presence of H. pylori, which failed to be eradicated in 50 subjects.

Vitamin D deficiency, defined as 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 levels of less than 10 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL), was revealed among 30.5% of the subjects. Eighty-four percent of patients in the failed treatment group and 14.7% of those in the successful treatment group were deficient in the vitamin. Among the 50 participants who experienced treatment failure, vitamin D levels averaged 9.13 ng/mL, while averaging 19.03 ng/mL in the group that was treated successfully.

"We found that H. pylori eradication rates were significantly lower in patients with vitamin D deficiency,” Oguzhan Yildirim and colleagues observed. “A potential pathogenic mechanism explaining the observed association between vitamin D status and eradication rates is impairment of the vitamin D signal immune function, which may lead to inadequate immune response."

"Vitamin D deficiency may be a risk factor associated with H. pylori infection treatment failure and may lead to a need for supplementation of vitamin D before H. pylori eradication therapy," they conclude.

Note: Life Extension suggests a 25-hydroxyvitamin D level of 50 ng/mL to 80 ng/mL as optimal.