REVIEW ARTICLE
Vitamin D and Type I Diabetes
Silvia Savastio1, *, Francesco Cadario1, 2, Sheila Beux1, Alberto Giorgis1, Giulia Genoni1, Marco Bagnati3, Giorgio Bellomo3, Gianni Bona1, 2, Luigi Maiuri1, 2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2018Volume: 12
Issue: Suppl-1, M8
First Page: 289
Last Page: 299
Publisher ID: TORJ-12-289
DOI: 10.2174/1874312901812010289
Article History:
Received Date: 22/4/2018Revision Received Date: 10/8/2018
Acceptance Date: 13/8/2018
Electronic publication date: 27/12/2018
Collection year: 2018
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that plays an important role in bone metabolism but is also endowed with the capability of modulating inflammatory and immune function. Recent studies reported a relationship between low vitamin D levels and several autoimmune diseases such as Type 1 Diabetes. Vitamin D regulates the expression of over 200 genes, also related to immune modulation, suggesting a putative role in these diseases pathogenesis. This review overviews the most recent advances on the association between vitamin D and increased risk of Type 1 Diabetes as well as between vitamin D and either glucose homeostasis or insulin sensitivity. The effects of vitamin D in modulating the immune response and balancing anti-inflammatory cytokines, suggest that vitamin D system may represent an unforeseen target for the design of novel strategies for the treatment of patients with autoimmune diseases and in particular Type 1 Diabetes.