Should I Take Vitamin D for Vitiligo?

Last Updated on 6th January 2023 by Caroline Haye

The risk of D deficiency

In my previous article on Vitamin D and Vitiligo I described the role vitamin D plays in the body and some of the reasons it can be helpful to supplement with this important nutrient. But in today’s post I am going to focus on a more specific question… Should I take vitamin D for vitiligo?

A doctor’s prescription for sunshine

As I have previously described, we only derive small quantities of this essential vitamin in our diet. So we are reliant on our body’s ability to make vitamin D when our skin gets direct sun exposure. Which explains why my doctor once recommended sitting in the sunshine for 20 minutes a day to top up my depleted vitamin D levels. This was one of the pleasantest prescriptions I have ever had. (Although an all-expenses-paid trip to Mauritius would have been even better). This was the first and only time any conventional medical practitioner has ever even mentioned vitamins to me. In fact, I have always had the distinct impression that nutrition hardly features at all in modern medical training.

However, vitamin D deficiency has been implicated in an ever-growing list of diseases that are putting an increasing strain on the health system… Which may explain why it seems to be one of the few nutrients that doctors actually take seriously. And this is not surprising when you consider the unique status of vitamin D. It is not just a vitamin. It’s also a neuro-regulatory, steroidal hormone that influences nearly 3,000 of the 25,000 different genes in the body.

Vitamin D deficiency is common

Alarmingly, as much as 50% of the global population is deficient in vitamin D, according to estimates. This is largely because they do not have enough sun exposure… Whether due to lifestyle or climate (or even over-use of sun protection products). And it means they should be taking vitamin D supplements, at least during the winter months.

Low levels of vitamin D in vitiligo and autoimmune disease

Scientists have found that patients with vitiligo and other autoimmune diseases typically have low levels of vitamin D… A fact that maybe makes sense when you consider that vitamin D3 is a natural immunosuppressant. (A lack of D3 presumably has a destabilising effect on the immune system.)

Because of its key role in producing skin pigmentation, a deficiency of vitamin D in vitiligo has implications that go beyond general health. Vitamin D has such a pivotal role in the tanning process that if it is not present in the skin it becomes impossible for calcium to perform its function of regulating the skin’s pigmentation cells.

Equally, there are specific risks for patients with other inflammatory and autoimmune conditions too. So vitamin D supplementation is likely even more important for those of us with a predisposition to vitiligo and autoimmune disorders than it is for the general population.

This scientific paper  Vitamin D and the skin: Focus on a complex relationship: A review contains a highly relevant section about vitiligo (you will need to scroll about a third of the way down the page) which starts:

Vitamin D protects the epidermal melanin unit and restores melanocyte integrity via several mechanisms including controlling the activation, proliferation, migration of melanocytes and pigmentation pathways by modulating T cell activation, which is apparently correlated with melanocyte disappearance in vitiligo… 

Vitamin D and the skin: Focus on a complex relationship: A review
Wedad Z.Mostafa, Rehab A.Hegazy

The authors go on to describe the various ways in which they have found vitamin D provides protection against vitiligo. These include

• the role of vitamin D in melanogenesis (the creation of pigment)
• the antioxidant properties of vitamin D, and
• the regulatory effect of vitamin D on the immune system

What does this mean for your vitiligo?

The science behind this topic is obviously very complex and still subject to further research. But what seems clear to me at this point is this. That vitamin D supplementation has to be a good idea for anyone with vitiligo. For one thing, it will increase your ability to produce pigment. It will help regulate your immune system. And its antioxidant effect will provide protection against free radical damage (which is part of the vitiligo process).

It is not clear whether or not taking vitamin D for vitiligo is ever an effective treatment on its own. (See Why I would not recommend vitamin D supplementation as your only vitiligo treatment.) But all the evidence suggests that a vitamin D deficiency is highly likely to make it worse.

You will find a list of the supplements I used to repigment my vitiligo on the Nutrition Summary page. They contain vitamin D as part of a broader formulation but not in the amounts necessary to correct a serious vitamin D deficiency. So I have added some vitamin D supplements to Vitiligo Store which I can personally recommend. It is in tablet form and works out incredibly inexpensive to use since one bottle has enough tablets to last a year.