Vitamin may help asthma sufferers

A SIMPLE vitamin supplement may help prevent potentially lethal asthma attacks, new research shows.

Vitamin D3 was found to improve the responsiveness of patients to steroid treatment, making repeat attacks less likely.

Most asthma patients are treated successfully with steroid inhalers or tablets, but some fail to improve even after taking high doses of oral steroids. These patients are vulnerable to repeat attacks, which can kill.

Doctors at King’s College London carried out laboratory experiments which showed that D3, one of the family of D vitamins, can reverse resistance to steroid treatments.

The vitamin helped a biochemical process that dampened the inappropriate immune system response causing allergies and asthma.

The researchers then carried out a pilot study in which asthmatics who were unresponsive to steroids took a daily D3 supplement for one week.

Blood tests showed that the patients’ immune system T-cells were more responsive to steroids after they had taken the pill.

Dr Catherine Hawrylowicz, who led the research, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, said: “The hope is that this work will lead to new ways to treat people who don’t respond to steroid treatment as it currently stands.

“It could also help those people who are on heavy doses of steroids to reduce the amount of medication they are taking.

Professor Tak Lee, director of the MRC-Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma at King’s College London and Imperial College, said:

“This has major implications for how to treat patients with severe asthma and could also substantially reduce the use of NHS resources.”