Patients suffering from fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS), which causes "widespread chronic pain and fatigue," could find some relief by increasing vitamin D intake.
New research suggests patients with FMS who are already vitamin D deficient could reduce their pain in a cost-effective manner, a news release reported.
FMS can also impose symptoms such as "sleep disorders, morning stiffness, poor concentration, and occasionally mild-to-severe mental symptoms such as anxiety or depression," the news release reported. There is no cure for the condition and no treatment on the market today can treat all of the symptoms at once.
Calcifedio (a prehormone in the liver)is converted to calcitriol, which is an "active form of vitamin D." Researchers can gauge a patient's vitamin D levels by looking at the concentration of calcifediol in the blood stream.
"Low blood levels of calcifediol are especially common in patients with severe pain and fibromyalgia. But although the role of calcifediol in the perception of chronic pain is a widely discussed subject, we lack clear evidence of the role of vitamin D supplementation in fibromyalgia patients," lead investigator Florian Wepner, MD, of the Department of Orthopaedic Pain Management, Spine Unit, Orthopaedic Hospital, Speising, Vienna, Austria, said in the news release. "We therefore set out to determine whether raising the calcifediol levels in these patients would alleviate pain and cause a general improvement in concomitant disorders."
The researchers looked at 30 women with FMS and low serum calcifediol levels; some of the patients were placed in the control group and the rest were in the treatment group.
The women in the treatment group received oral cholecalciferol supplements, which were then discontinued for 24 weeks. At the end of those 24 weeks the patients were reevaluated. The team found a "reduction in the level of perceived pain "in the treatment group both during the treatments and after; the control group remained unchanged. The treatment group also scored better on the Fibromalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQ) in terms of morning fatigue. They did not observe an improvement in depression and anxiety.
"We believe that the data presented in the present study are promising. FMS is a very extensive symptom complex that cannot be explained by a vitamin D deficiency alone. However, vitamin D supplementation may be regarded as a relatively safe and economical treatment for FMS patients and an extremely cost-effective alternative or adjunct to expensive pharmacological treatment as well as physical, behavioral, and multimodal therapies," Wepner said. "Vitamin D levels should be monitored regularly in FMS patients, especially in the winter season, and raised appropriately."
