Sunburn Inflammation Alleviated by Vitamin D

Taking high doses of vitamin D an hour after sunburn was associated with significantly reduced skin redness, swelling, and inflammation, according to the results of a recent study.

In their double-blind, placebo-controlled interventional trial, researchers randomly assigned 20 adults to receive either placebo or high-dose (50,000, 100, 000, or 200,000 IU) vitamin D₃ (cholecalciferol) 1 hour after experimental sunburn induced using an erythemogenic dose of ultraviolet radiation.
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The participants were followed up with at 24, 48, and 73 hours and 1 week following the experiment. Skin biopsies were collected for further testing.

Overall, the participants who consumed the highest doses of vitamin D had reduced pro-inflammatory mediators TNF-α and iNOS in their skin biopsies 48 hours after sunburn. Individuals with the highest serum vitamin D₃ levels had increased skin expression of the anti-inflammatory mediator arginase-1 and had sustained reduction in skin redness.

“I would not recommend at this moment that people start taking vitamin D after sunburn based on this study alone. But, the results are promising and worthy of further study,” concluded Kurt Lu, MD, senior author of the study.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Scott JF, Das LM, Ahsanuddin S, et al. Oral vitamin D rapidly attenuates inflammation from sunburn: an interventional study [published online May 30, 2017]. J Invest Derm.    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jid.2017.04.040.

Vitamin D May Improve Sunburn, According to New Clinical Trial [press release]. Case Western Reserve University. July 6, 2017. http://casemed.case.edu/cwrumed360/news-releases/release.cfm?news_id=671.