Childhood asthma problems eliminated for months by 600,000 IU of Vitamin D injection – June 2017

Trial of vitamin D supplementation to prevent asthma exacerbation in children

Int. J of Research in Medical Science, Vol 5, No 6 (2017),
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2320-6012.ijrms20172479
Elango Krishnan, Venmugil Ponnusamy, Sathiya Priya Sekar

VitaminDWiki

Loading: intramuscular vitamin D injection 300,000-600,000 IU over 1-5 days
Maintenance: oral vitamin D 600 IU + calcium (30-70 mg/kg/day) for 3 months
57% 5-8 years, 23% 9-10 years, 20% 11-12 years

This was not a randomized controlled trial (RCT) - all of the children with asthma got the Vitamin D
Since it was not a RCT it will not probably be be included in any meta-analyses of Asthma and Vitamin D
Maintenance Dose: strangely it was too small and not proportional to body weight - as the calcium dose was
Injection is nice, but not essential

Overview Asthma and Vitamin D
Childhood asthma still reduced 4 months after 800 IU of Vitamin D daily - RCT Feb 2016
Vitamin D supplements could halve risk of serious asthma attacks – Cochrane conclusion – Sept 2016
Asthma reduced 60 percent with vitamin D supplementation – meta-analysis 2014, 2015
Asthma is treated by Vitamin D – now they are trying to understand why – Feb 2015
VitaminDWiki pages containing ASTHMA in title (130 as of Aug 2021)
If high vitamin D during pregnancy the child is 5X less likely to get asthma
Injection category listing has 65 items along with related searches

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Decreased Emergency room visits

Decreased hospital visits

Decreased need for reliever inhalent
82% < 2 days per week 3 months after stop of daily vitamin D

Background: To assess the level of vitamin D in children with bronchial asthma and to study the effects of vitamin D supplementation in asthmatic children who had vitamin D deficiency in terms of asthma control test score and Number of exacerbations.

Methods: This interventional study was conducted in Department of Paediatrics, KAPV Government medical college, Trichy, Tamil Nadu, India from September 2016 to February 2017. 96 asthmatic children of age group 5-12 years who attended outpatient department and admitted in ward for asthma exacerbation were selected. After assessing their Vitamin D level, Vitamin D supplementation given along with standard treatment for asthma. Outcomes measured were ACTS (Asthma control test score), number of emergency room visits, number of hospital admissions and reliever medication use.

Results: Out of 96 children, 83 (86.4%) children had vitamin D deficiency. There was significant correlation between vitamin D level and absolute eosinophil count (p-value-0.037), asthma severity (p-value<0.001) and asthma control (p-value<0.001). Significant reduction in emergency room visits, (p-value<0.001) reliever medication use (p-value<0.001) and improvement in asthma control test score (p-value-0.008) occurs after vitamin D supplementation.

Conclusions: There is a significant correlation between vitamin D level, asthma severity and its control. Asthma exacerbation in terms of emergency room visits and reliever medication use were further reduced by vitamin D supplementation.

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