Effect of vitamin D supplementation on patients with acne vulgaris: An intervention study

Background: Acne is a common chronic inflammatory disease of the skin. Vitamin-D is fat soluble vitamin with immunomodulatory function, its deficiency has been noticed in various skin diseases. Objectives: assess frequency of serum vitamin-D deficiency among acne vulgaris patients and the effect of vitamin-D supplementation on acne grading. Method: the study was conducted on two phases, phase I was a cross-sectional study included measuring serum vitamin D level for 80 acne patients attending dermatology clinic at Menoufia University Hospital. Phase II was case control study where studied acne patients with vitamin-D deficiency (66 patients) were randomly divided into two groups; one group (33 patients) were treated with free Oral vitamin-D 2000IU/ tablet for 2 months in addition to regular acne treatment. The other group (33 patients) received traditional treatment for acne without vitamin-D supplementation and both groups were followed up clinically for two months. Results: frequency of vitamin-D deficiency among studied patients was 82.5%, there was statistically significant relationship between vitamin-D deficiency and severity of acne. Vitamin-D deficiency is significantly prevalent among female patients (98.4%). There was significant improvement in acne grading after vitamin-D supplementation Conclusion and recommendation: There’s significant relation between vitamin-D deficiency and severity of acne vulgaris and vitamin -D has a good role in management of acne. So. It is recommended to evaluate the serum level of vitamin D in acne patients and provide vitamin D supplementation to vitamin D deficient patients beside topical treatments for acne.