Vitamin D as an effective treatment approach for drug abuse and addiction

Abstract

Effective pharmacological treatments for drug abuse and addiction have not yet been identified. Evidences show that vitamin D may be involved in neurodevelopment and may have a neuroprotective effect on dopaminergic pathways in the adult brain. The fact that vitamin D increases the levels of tyrosine hydroxylase expression implies that vitamin D could modulate dopaminergic processes. Drugs of abuse act through different mechanisms of action and on different locations in the brain reward system; however, all of them share a final action in which they increase dopamine levels in the reward pathway. Vitamin D-treated animals showed significant attenuated methamphetamine-induced reductions in dopamine and metabolites when compared to control, indicating that vitamin D provides protection for the dopaminergic system against the depleting effects of methamphetamine. In this article, it is speculated that vitamin D would be an effective treatment approach for drug abuse and addiction, if we consider that vitamin D would provide protection for the dopaminergic system against dopamine-depleting effects of drugs, as it did for methamphetamine. This hypothesis can provide a new direction towards a new treatment approach for drug abuse and addiction, as we have no pharmacological treatments at our disposal at the present moment, although several issues need further investigation.