Vitamin D is also useful for septicemia

William B. Grant   (2010-02-12 09:12)  Sunlight, Nutrition and Health Research Center

This is a great paper.

Related to their finding is that vitamin D reduces the risk of septis/septicemia, in part through induction of cathelicidin and defensins, which have antibiotic and antiendotoxin properties, in part through shifting cytokine production from proinflammatory to less or non-inflammatory ones. A similar benefit was recently reported for pneumonia following A/H1N1 pandemic influenza infection in the United States in 1918-19.

Thus, the combination of fish oil and vitamin D could go a long way towards reducing the incidence and death of people from sepsis/septicemia. It might be worthwhile to consider giving those entering the hospital for operations 50,000 IU of vitamin D each of several days prior to or shortly after the operation if they are thought to have low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels.

References
Grant WB. Solar ultraviolet-B irradiance and vitamin D may reduce the risk of septicemia. Dermato-Endocrinology. 2009;1(1):37-42.
http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/dermatoendocrinology/article/7250/

Grant WB, Giovannucci D. The possible roles of solar ultraviolet-B radiation and vitamin D in reducing case-fatality rates from the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic in the United States. Dermato-Endocrinology 2009;1(4): 215-9.
http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/29/article/9063/

Jeng L, Yamshchikov AV, Judd SE, Blumberg HM, Martin GS, Ziegler TR, Tangpricha V. Alterations in vitamin D status and anti-microbial peptide levels in patients in the intensive care unit with sepsis. J Transl Med. 2009 Apr 23;7:28.

Mookherjee N, Hancock RE. Cationic host defence peptides: innate immune regulatory peptides as a novel approach for treating infections. Cell Mol Life Sci. 2007 Apr;64(7-8):922-33.

Mookherjee N, Rehaume LM, Hancock RE. Cathelicidins and functional analogues as antisepsis molecules. Expert Opin Ther Targets. 2007 Aug;11(8):993-1004. Review.

Competing interests

Disclosure
I receive funding from the UV Foundation (McLean, VA), the Sunlight Research Forum (Veldhoven), and Bio-Tech-Pharmacal (Fayetteville, AR) and have previously received funding from the Vitamin D Society (Canada).

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