Vitamin D and autoimmune thyroid disease

Abstract

In recent years,the role of vitamin D in the immune system has been investigated. The immunomodulatory properties of vitamin D compounds were illustrated by their ability to either prevent or suppress animal models of autoimmune disease. Autoimmune thyroid diseases (AITD) are organ-specific an-toimmune diseases. It was testified that AITD were associated with the polymorphisms of vitamin D related genes, such as vitamin D receptor gene,25-hydroxyvitamin D3-1α-hydroxylase (CYP27B1) gene, vitamin D-binding protein gene, etc. Patients with AITD were coexisted with vitamin D deficiency and vitamin D supple-mentation benefited for the prevention and treatment of AITD. The probable mechanisms of vitamin D and its analogs in AITD maybe include modulating the expression of many cytokines in AITD and regulating apopto-sis of thyroid cells. Thus we postulate that vitamin D and its analogs have a broad prospect in the clinical ap-plication for AITD. Key words: Vitamin D; Autoimmune thyroid disease; Graves' disease; Hashimoto's thyroiditis