Vitamin D: drug of the future. A new therapeutic approach

Journal of Nutrition & Food Sciences, 2016

2008

BMJ, 1979

1998

Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation, 2010

Advances in Nutrition, 2021

Biochemistry, 1981

actually involved in the two very different processes. Detailed structural work will have to be performed with aldehyde dehydrogenase to determine the groups whose pKs were identified.

Srpski arhiv za celokupno lekarstvo, 2012

Vitamin D, i.e. 1,25(OH) 2D, is an essential factor, not only of homeostasis of calcium and phosphorus, but also of cell proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis, immune and hormonal regulation, as well as other body processes. Thus, its optimal presence in the body is of exceptional significance for health, both of children, as well as adults and elderly persons. Today, it is known that the lack of vitamin D, besides having negative effects on the skeleton and teeth, also contributes to the development of various malignancies, primarily of the large bowel, prostate and breasts, as well as of autoimmune and allergic diseases, diabetes mellitus type II, arterial hypertension and others. Considered from the biological aspect, physiological requirements in vitamin D are achieved by cutaneous synthesis from 7-dehydrocholesterol during sun exposure, while, except rarely, it is very scarce in food. Having in mind extensive evidence that sun exposure presents a high risk for the develo...

Medical Hypotheses, 1997

Following solar ultraviolet radiation, epidermal 7-dehydrocholesterol is converted to previtamin D3, which then undergoes a thermal isomerization into vitamin D3. The metabolism of vitamin D3, which is usually considered as an inactive compound, gives rise to the active hormone 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3, following two hydroxylation steps occurring in liver and kidney. Here, we propose that this anabolic pathway can also be interpreted as a catabolic one leading to the degradation of the photoproducts of 7-dehydrocholesterol, for which a specific biological role in the skin is proposed.

2002

In a classical sense, vitamin D3, the form produced in animals, is not a true “vitamin” because it is produced in the skin from 7-dehydrocholesterol by UV radiation in the range 290 to 300 nm; 7-dehydrocholesterol is produced from cholesterol metabolism. Only when exposure to sunlight is inadequate does vitamin D3 become a vitamin in the historical sense. Further, vitamin D3 is now termed a provitamin because it requires hydroxylation by the liver and the kidney to be fully active.