Vitamin D Could Assist With Severe Burn Recovery
The findings of a recent study presented at the annual conference of the Society for Endocrinology, held in Harrogate, UK, outlined how researchers from the Institute of Inflammation & Aging at the University of Birmingham identified that vitamin D supplementation could have a major positive impact on the treatment of severe burns IFLScience.com reported.
Professor Janet Lord and Dr. Khaled Al Tarrah observed the recovery of 38 people with severe burns over a period of a year and measured the levels of vitamin D in their blood at the same time.
“Low vitamin D levels were associated with worse outcomes in burn patients including life-threatening infections, mortality and delayed wound healing. It was also associated with worse scarring but vitamin D levels are something generally overlooked by clinicians,” Lord said in a statement.
While this establishes that low vitamin D is a risk factor, Lord and Tarrah have yet to test whether or not supplements would actually help, clinical trials will still need to be conducted. “However, simply having shown that burns deplete vitamin D levels suggests those who are suffering from burns could suffer secondary effects from the lack of vitamin D for other organs,” Stephen Luntz reported.
