Heliotherapy Improves Vitamin D Balance

LAHTI, Finland—In a study published in the British Journal of Dermatology, researchers found heliotherapy (HT) significantly improved vitamin D balance by increasing serum calcidiol concentration, and caused a marked healing of atopic dermatitis (AD) (2008;158(6):1323-1328) (DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2133.2008.08518.x). For two weeks, 23 adult patients with AD received HT in the Canary Islands in either January or March 2005. Before HT, 17 AD patients had vitamin D insufficiency and four patients had high serum calcidiol values. The median personal UV dose during the two-week HT course was 60 SED in the January group and 109 SED in the March group. Serum calcidiol concentration increased significantly in both groups, by 13.4 and 24.0 nmol/L-1, respectively, and after HT only four patients had vitamin D insufficiency. SCORAD improved from 34 to 9 in the January HT group and from 30 to 9 in the March group. These parallel positive responses should be taken into account when the benefits of HT are considered.