The medical and research team from Belgium suggests that Vitamin D supplements can treat COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Miek Hornikx, physiotherapist and doctoral student in the department of pneumology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Leuven, Belgium says, “Our study shows that high doses of vitamin D supplementation on top of a standard rehabilitation program improve the outcome in terms of exercise capacity and respiratory muscle strength.”
“Since vitamin D is often depleted in patients with COPD, we wanted to see if vitamin D supplementation would have a beneficial effect on rehabilitation among these patients, perhaps by increasing muscle strength,” she added.
So as a part of the pulmonary rehabilitation program, patients were asked to participate in a survey before and after rehabilitation. At the end of the study, it was found that patients who were treated with Vitamin D.
All Patients, who participated in the pulmonary rehabilitation program, were asked to complete a quality of life survey both before and after rehabilitation. Researchers found out that patients who were treated with Vitamin D showed higher improvement in respiratory muscle strength and better exercising ability.
“These results support the idea that correcting vitamin D deficiency by adding vitamin D supplements to training programs allows COPD patients to achieve better results from rehabilitation, including improvements in muscle strength and exercise capacity,” said Hornikx. The results of the study will be shown at in ATS 2011at the International Conference in Denver.
