Vitamin D deficiency may not play a role in Sjögren’s syndrome

Patients with Sjögren’s syndrome tended to have higher levels of vitamin D compared with healthy control participants in a recently presented study, which found no association with antibodies and levels of vitamin D.

Seventy patients with Sjögren’s syndrome (SS) were evaluated and compared with 78 patients with sicca symptoms who did not meet criteria for SS and with 148 healthy participants matched for age, sex and race. Participants were enrolled in the multidisciplinary Oklahoma Sjögren’s Syndrome Cohort, and the mean age of patients with SS or sicca symptoms was 51.8 years.
The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency as defined by the Institute of Medicine in patients with SS and patients with sicca symptoms was 16.9%, while deficiency was detected in 52.7% of healthy participants. Patients with SS had an average vitamin D level of 28.1 ng/mL compared with 19.1 ng/mL in matched control participants, while patients with sicca symptoms had 30.1 ng/mL vitamin D levels compared with 22.5 ng/mL in matched control participants.

No differences in vitamin D levels were observed in patients with or without the presence of anti-SSA/Ro or anti-SSB/La antibodies or between anti-nuclear antibody (ANA)-positive or ANA-negative patients with SS.

“These findings are similar to those of the few studies conducted in the past, which did not show a lower vitamin D level in patients with primary SS as compared to controls, and suggest that vitamin D deficiency does not contribute to the pathogenesis of Sjögren’s syndrome,” the researchers wrote. “Furthermore, these results also suggest that vitamin D deficiency does not contribute to autoantibody production as it may in [systemic lupus erythematosus] SLE.” – by Shirley Pulawski

Reference:

Grewal S, et al. Paper #518. Presented at: American College of Rheumatology Annual Meeting; Nov. 7-11, 2015; San Francisco.

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.