Actual article title, though I disagree with the “high-dose” qualifier as it corresponds roughly to a vitamin D3 dose of ~7,000 IU daily, which is not really a pharmacological dose. While the authors were not brave enough to claim that vitamin D supplementation could be an effective prophylactic measure for HIV\/AIDS they did demonstrate that lack of sunlight (in this case due to low UVB exposure of people in the winter) and the accompanying vitamin D deficiency result in both a suppressed immune system and a semi-anemic condition. Both of those effects of sunlight deficiency were reversed by supplementing vitamin D3 for 6 weeks, at a dose of 60,000 IU once weekly. Perhaps most importantly, the blood of people deficient in vitamin D was vulnerable to infection\/replication with HIV, while the blood of supplemented subjects was highly resistant to the pathogen. Whether that means vitamin D supplementation alone can prevent (maybe treat?) HIV\/AIDS is as of yet unanswered, but the authors seem confident-enough in their results to state that vitamin D can become a powerful tool in the fight against the disease, especially in low-income regions like Africa (where the study was conducted), and where only a cheap and widely available intervention such as vitamin D has a chance of being adopted.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.pnas.org\/doi\/full\/10.1073\/pnas.1500909112<\/a><\/p>\n “…To investigate the functional consequence of seasonal serum 25(OH)D levels on the immune system, we next investigated seasonal differences in full blood count (FBC) and the effect of vitamin D3<\/sub>\u00a0supplementation on FBC in Xhosa participants. Vitamin D3<\/sub>\u00a0supplementation in the winter increased WBC count (P<\/i>\u00a0= 0.0016) and in particular lymphocyte count (P<\/i>\u00a0= 0.023), and there was a winter trend for decreased monocytes (Fig. 2\u00a0A<\/i>\u2013C<\/i><\/a>). In the winter, participant\u2019s RBC parameters tended toward macrocytic anemia [evidenced by decreased RBC and RBC distribution width (RDW), increased mean corpuscular volume, and a trend toward decreased Hb], and this tendency was reversed by supplementation<\/strong><\/span> (P<\/i>\u00a0\u2264 0.0007) (Fig. 2\u00a0D<\/i>\u2013F<\/i><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Fig. S4A<\/i><\/a>).”<\/p>\n “…Infection of PBMCs in winter, compared with summer, resulted in greater productive HIV-1 infection on day 9<\/strong><\/span>, as measured by culture supernatant p24 antigen levels. This result was seen in PBMCs isolated from both Xhosa (P<\/i>\u00a0= 0.0003,\u00a0Fig. 2\u00a0G<\/i>\u2013I<\/i><\/a>) and Cape Mixed (P<\/i>\u00a0< 0.0001,\u00a0Fig. S4\u00a0E<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0F<\/i><\/a>) participants. This winter increase in HIV-1 infection was seen with both preparations of HIV-1, with \u223c1-log higher p24 measured from cells infected with unpurified virus<\/strong><\/span> (Xhosa median 7,038 pg\/mL unpurified vs. 738 pg\/mL purified) (Fig. 2\u00a0H<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0I<\/i><\/a>). After 6 wk of vitamin D3<\/sub>\u00a0supplementation in winter, the winter increase in HIV-1 p24 was attenuated, and Xhosa participants\u2019 PBMCs showed a diminished capacity for productive HIV-1 infection: on day 9 p24 levels had dropped to the level as observed in summer<\/strong><\/span> (Fig. 2G<\/i><\/a>). Again, this decrease occurred with infections using both purified and unpurified virus (Fig. 2\u00a0H<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0I<\/i><\/a>), demonstrating the robustness of oral vitamin D3<\/sub>\u00a0supplementation in suppressing productive HIV-1 infection in peripheral blood cells ex vivo<\/strong><\/span>. Moreover there was a significant negative correlation between paired serum 25(OH)D and day 9 p24 concentrations from PBMCs infected with purified virus, across all time points (Spearman\u00a0r<\/i>s<\/sub>\u00a0= \u22120.36;\u00a0P<\/i> < 0.0001), indicating a direct correlation between serum 25(OH)D levels and the ability of peripheral blood cells to limit productive HIV-1 infection<\/strong><\/span>.”<\/p>\n Actual article title, though I disagree with the “high-dose” qualifier as it corresponds roughly to a vitamin…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1270,1541,50,1269,130,898,49,162],"class_list":["post-1813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-science","tag-aids","tag-anemia","tag-cholecalciferol","tag-hiv","tag-immune","tag-virus","tag-vitamin-d","tag-vitamin-d3","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1814,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813\/revisions\/1814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/haidut.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}