Vitamin D and Osteoarthritis Pain

Ray Marks

Department of Health and Behavior Studies, Teachers College, Columbia University, NY 10027, USA

Dr. Ray Marks, Department of Health and Behavior Studies, Teachers College, Columbia University, NY 10027, USA.

Keywords: Osteoarthritis; Pain; Research; Treatments; Vitamin D

Abstract

Effectively treating the pain accompanying osteoarthritis, a chronic irreversible progressively disabling joint disease remains extremely challenging. This mini review examines the controversial literature pertaining to: 1) whether vitamin D, a powerful bone-mediating compound involved in many physiological processes can influence the pain experience of people with osteoarthritis, and 2) whether more research in this realm is indicated or not. To this end, a comprehensive overview of relevant English language research reports published largely over the last five years was undertaken. The results showed that as with prior findings, those published since 2015 provide some conflicting evidence as regards a possible protective, reparative or mediating role for vitamin D in the context of osteoarthritis pain. However, in light of a substantive number of favorable findings, and feasible mechanistic explanatory mechanisms of action, it is concluded that further well-designed research and application of the wealth of supportive preclinical findings to the clinical realm may yet prove highly beneficial in this respect and is strongly encouraged.

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).