Vitamin D Supplementation for Treating Atopic Dermatitis in Children and Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronic inflammatory skin disease affecting up to 20% of children and 10% of adults worldwide. Current research suggests a correlation between serum vitamin D level and AD severity and that vitamin D supplementation could have a potential therapeutic effect on AD.

OBJECTIVES

To conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies of vitamin D supplementation for disease improvement in children and adults with AD.

METHODS

PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane were searched from 19 April to 20 April 2024. We included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of patients with AD comparing an intervention group with a control group. The risk of bias of the selected studies was assessed using the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool for randomized trials. All analyses were conducted in R (v4.1.2; R Core Team 2021).

RESULTS

Eleven RCTs with 686 participants were included. The included trials had measured AD severity by using the SCOring Atopic Dermatitis (SCORAD) or the Eczema Area and Severity Index (EASI). Vitamin D supplementation significantly reduced AD severity compared with the control group (standardized mean difference = -0.41, 95% CI: -0.67 to -0.16, = 58%, < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONS

Vitamin D supplementation reduces AD severity in children and adults. Larger-scale and longer-term studies are still needed to confirm this conclusion. This study has been registered on PROSPERO (CRD42024535014).