Vitamin D in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)

Abstract

Vitamin D is increasingly accepted as an important physiological regulator of several organ systems apart from its classical role in skeletal homeostasis. In recent years, new scientific discoveryon vitamin D expands our knowledge of its actions in many aspects such as immune modulation, cell differentiation and proliferation, and inflammatory regulations. Vitamin D deficiency is one of the mostcommon micronutrient deficiencies worldwide. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and vitamin D deficiency often coexist. In addition, epidemiologic evidence has shown that both conditions shareseveral cardio-metabolic risk factors. While pre-clinical experimental data is promising, most clinical trials based on the effect of vitamin D in NASH are under-powered and inconclusive. Further studiesare required to elucidate the beneficial effect of vitamin D or its analogues in NASH. In this article, we provide an overview of the epidemiology and pathophysiology linking NAFLD and vitamin D deficiency,as well as the available evidence on the clinical utility of vitamin D supplementation in NAFLD.
 Figure 1 แสดงวิตามินดีเมตาบอลิสม์ (ดัดแปลงจากเอกสารอ้างอิง Hossein-Nezhad and Holick (12))