Vitamin D and Curcumin Piperine Attenuates Disease Activity and Cytokine Levels in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Patients
Status:
Completed
Trial end date:
2022-01-31
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic systemic autoimmune disease with a relatively
high mortality and morbidity rate, especially in developing countries such as Indonesia. In
Indonesia, a previous study demonstrated that almost 71% of SLE patients experience
hypovitaminosis D, with serum vitamin D 25 levels less than 30 ng/ml. Several factors
contribute to the low vitamin D levels among SLE patients. Less exposure to sunlight or
insufficient vitamin D intake contributes to SLE patients low vitamin D levels. Some other
studies also revealed that vitamin D metabolism gene polymorphisms are also associated with
patients with SLE.
Vitamin D is essential for bone health and has an essential role in immune system modulation
and controlling autoimmune diseases, including SLE. Another study demonstrates that curcumin
supplementation in premenopausal women and dysmenorrhea improves vitamin D levels. Despite
the promising properties of curcumin in improving vitamin D biological actions, our previous
study reveals that the addition of curcumin in vitamin D administration do not significantly
improve the disease activity or cytokine imbalance in SLE patients. The synergistic property
of curcumin with vitamin D in regulating immune cells is an open opportunity for researchers
to increase the response to vitamin D3 therapy.
Several studies have reported the efficacy of vitamin D or curcumin for SLE treatment.
However, none mentioned the combination of curcumin added with piperine and vitamin D3. We
hypothesized that adding curcumin piperine with vitamin D3 as a complementary treatment in
SLE patients would improve the clinical symptoms or cytokine balance among SLE patients.
Therefore, this study aims to observe the effects of adding curcumin-piperine with vitamin D3
in clinical outcomes and cytokines levels in SLE patients with hypovitaminosis D.