Abstract
Background: Recent studies have suggested a relation between vitamin D serum level and autoimmune diseases including rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Also, vitamin D has an important role in regulating the immune system.
Objective: The present study aimed at exploring the relation between serum level of vitamin D and severity of RA.
Methods: The study group consisted of 153 RA patients not on vitamin D supplements who had referred to Qazvin Avicenna Hospital. Disease activity was assessed according to the disease activity score28 (DAS28). Serum levels of vitamin D and Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate (ESR) were determined for all the participants.
Findings: Vitamin D deficiency was found in 105 RA patients (68.6%). Patients were divided into three groups of low, moderate and high disease activity according to DAS28 score with 86 (56.2%), 33 (21.5%) and 34 (22.2%) patients respectively. A significant negative correlation was found between serum level of vitamin D and disease severity according to DAS28. Similarly, a negative correlation was shown to exist between the patients' pain intensity according to VAS score, and their ESR serum level (P<0.05).
Conclusion: Vitamin D deficiency was prevalent among patients with RA. Furthermore, there was a negative correlation between vitamin D and the disease severity.
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Copyright
© 2024, Journal of Inflammatory Diseases. This open-access article is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 (CC BY-NC 4.0) International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which allows for the copying and redistribution of the material only for noncommercial purposes, provided that the original work is properly cited.