“Many rheumatic diseases, which obviously need to be treated with the most innovative and appropriate drugs, can benefit in terms of improving the outcome”, with “vitamin D supplementation” which “is able to influence the course of the disease”. Studies furthermore, recent reports reveal that “cholecalciferol supplementation improves both maternal and newborn outcomes”, said Andrea Giusti, head of the simple departmental structure (Ssd) Metabolic bone diseases and prevention of fractures in the elderly Genoese Local Health Authority 3, speaking at 59 .th Congress of the Italian Society of Rheumatology (Sir) underway in Rimini.
“Vitamin D deficiency – recalls the specialist – is extremely frequent in rheumatological patients and therefore, beyond the effect on the pathology itself, there is always the indication of supplementary with cholecalciferol in deficient patients and in which the deficiency can have skeletal and rheumatological consequences”. The opinions are unanimous in the session dedicated to ‘Metabolic diseases of the skeleton’ of the SIR congress: vitamin D is able to reduce the incidence of some rheumatic diseases such as arthritis rheumatoid, but there are important innovations in the obstetric-gynecological area.
“In particular – he continues – mothers who take vitamin D supplements, particularly in the third trimester, have a lower risk of complications during pregnancy, while supplementation in the first and third trimester is able to influence the health of the newborn. From English studies, it is shown that having good vitamin D values in the third trimester influences bone mineral density at six to nine years of age in children – adds the expert – a beneficial impact that the child carries on throughout his life. This is a very complex area that is also intervening in a very important historical moment with the great attention that there is in some emerging countries, in which this aspect is being studied. We believe that vitamin D can change public health – he concludes Right – because early interventions reduce long-term risks”.