Vitamin D Repletion in Stone Formers With Hypercalciuria
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2011-06-01
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Vitamin D plays a critical role in maintaining bone health, as well as preventing
cardiovascular disease, cancer, and various autoimmune diseases, such as diabetes. Vitamin D
deficiency is very common in the United States and worldwide, and is now being increasingly
recognized and treated. One group in which vitamin D deficiency may be particularly important
is patients who have had kidney stones. These patients frequently have elevated levels of
calcium in their urine, which is a common and important risk factor for calcium containing
kidney stones. Because vitamin D increases absorption of calcium into the blood by the
intestines, physicians may be reluctant to prescribe vitamin D therapy to patients with
vitamin D deficiency if they also have kidney stones and high amounts of calcium in the
urine. They are concerned about the possible risk of increasing the amount of calcium in the
urine (and thereby increasing the risk of calcium stones occurring again). However, studies
in patients without kidney stones, as well as studies in patients with high calcium levels in
the urine, have demonstrated that giving vitamin D is effective and safe and does not
increase calcium in the urine. Therefore, the investigators will study the effects of giving
vitamin D on the amount of calcium in the urine in patients with a history of kidney stones
and elevated calcium in the urine. The investigators will evaluate the safety of giving
vitamin D to this particular group of patients.