Vitamin D pills can halve the risk of serious asthma attacks read more at here www.spinonews.com/index.php/item/773-vitamin-d-pills-can-halve-the-risk-of-serious-asthma-attacks

Scientists found, People with mild or moderate asthma who took the vitamin D with their normal medicine had fewer attacks that required hospital treatment than those who went without.

According to a major research, Vitamin D pills can halve the risk of serious asthma attacks.

More than five million people in the UK, and 334 million globally, are affected by asthma which causes wheezing, coughing, tightness in the chest, and shortness of breath.

A major review, involving nearly 1,100 patients, found that people who took the supplements alongside their normal medication saw the risk of a severe attack fall from 6 per cent to 3 per cent.

Most of the patients had mild to moderate asthma, meaning they had symptoms at least two days a week, but their daily routine was not seriously affected. Nearly all kept taking their normal asthma medicine on top of the vitamin D supplements.

Adrian Martineau, a professor of respiratory infection who led the review at Queen Mary, University of London said, while the trials found a daily dose of 25 to 50 micrograms reduced the risk of serious attacks, the evidence was largely from adults.

Everybody in Britain over the age of one consider taking a 10 microgram daily supplement of vitamin D, particularly over the autumn and winter when sunlight levels are low. The body makes vitamin D when sunlight falls on the skin, but people who cover up outside, and those who are housebound can struggle to make enough.

It is not clear how vitamin D helps asthma patients, but supplements may work by boosting the immune system’s defenses against respiratory infections, which are the main triggers for serious asthma attacks. The vitamin also seems to keep inflammation under control.

Martineau said, vitamin D almost as a designer drug because it has two actions, the first being to boost immunity to infections and the second to dampen down inflammation.

The findings come as scientists report impressive trial results for a drug that cuts asthma attacks in patients with the most severe form of the disease.