Effect of vitamin D supplementation on chronic liver disease: systematic literature review

Introduction: It is long known that vitamin D deficiency was common in patients with liver disease, but little is known on the therapeutic effects of vitamin D, especially in patients with chronic liver disease. In this study, we aimed to systematically review the literatures and study the evidences in which the effects of vitamin D supplementation had been investigated on the severity of chronic liver disease or liver cirrhosis

Methods: A systematic literature search was performed by using the following key terms "vitamin D supplementation" and "chronic liver disease" in the PubMed, Scopus and Google scholar to find relevant articles. After collecting the eligible documents, data were extracted and described based on the purpose of this review

Result: Of total 196 articles found, only 7 relevant documents with 518 studied patients were included. The results of this study showed that the levels of 25[OH] D were considerably lower in patients with chronic liver disease. Findings showed that vitamin D supplementation can rise up the mean serum level of 25[OH] D in patients with severe vitamin D deficiency, especially patients with liver cirrhosis

Conclusion: The results of this review showed that vitamin D deficiency is associated with the severity of liver disease and may have prognostic value in the assessment of liver disease. Also, it was shown that vitamin D supplementation may be helpful for the treatment of liver disease at least in certain groups of patients

Association between Vitamin D deficiency and the severity of chronic liver disease and liver cirrhosis: systematic literature review

Background: Vitamin D deficiency is believed to cause variety of abnormalities such as liver stifihess and fibrosis. It is also shown that vitamin D deficiency may result in chronic liver disease or liver cirrhosis. In this study, we aimed to systematically review the literature wherein the relationship between vitamin D deficiency and the severity of chronic liver disease or liver cirrhosis had been investigated

Materials and Methods: PubMed, Scopus, and Google scholar were searched using the following search method [vitamin D deficiency OR vitamin D insufficiency OR insufficient vitamin D] AND [chronic liver disease OR chronic hepatitis OR cirrhosis OR liver cirrhosis] AND [severity OR intensity] to evaluate the role of vitamin D deficiency or vitamin D inadequacy in the occurrence and severity of chronic liver disease. Articles were collected and the data were extracted

Results: Totally, 641 articles were found through searching the databases and reference list scanning. Of the collected documents, only 19 articles with 4895 studied patients were included and analyzed. The results of this study showed that almost 80% of patients with chronic liver disease had severe vitamin D deficiency

Conclusion: Vitamin D deficiency is associated with the occurrence of chronic liver disease. The severity of liver cirrhosis is also associated with the level of 25 [OH] in progressive liver disease