Vitamin D Reportedly Controls & Activates Human T Cells and Deficiency Can Potentially Cause Flu & Other Infections

Just a note of disclaimer, I take Vitamin D every day and I can speak positively on its personal benefits. Therefore, this recent report from FoodConsumer.org that discusses these potential Vitamin D benefits caught my attention. The article cites a study from Nature Immunology (the abstract is included below) about Vitamin D's control of human T-cells. T-cells play a central role in the human immune system at a cellular level.

A new study led by researchers at the University of Copenhagen has confirmed that vitamin D plays an important role in activating immune defenses against infectious diseases like flu.

As mentioned, the abstract is below. I don't have access to Nature Immunology, so I have not been able to read the full report yet. Perhaps Nature Immunology will send me a copy for news blogging purposes (wink, wink).

Vitamin D deficiency is why you get flu and other infections

Nature Immunology
Published online: 7 March 2010 | doi:10.1038/ni.1851

Vitamin D controls T cell antigen receptor signaling and activation of human T cells

Marina Rode von Essen, Martin Kongsbak, Peter Schjerling, Klaus Olgaard, Niels Ødum, & Carsten Geisler

Abstract

Phospholipase C (PLC) isozymes are key signaling proteins downstream of many extracellular stimuli. Here we show that naive human T cells had very low expression of PLC-γ1 and that this correlated with low T cell antigen receptor (TCR) responsiveness in naive T cells. However, TCR triggering led to an upregulation of ~75-fold in PLC-γ1 expression, which correlated with greater TCR responsiveness. Induction of PLC-γ1 was dependent on vitamin D and expression of the vitamin D receptor (VDR). Naive T cells did not express VDR, but VDR expression was induced by TCR signaling via the alternative mitogen-activated protein kinase p38 pathway. Thus, initial TCR signaling via p38 leads to successive induction of VDR and PLC-γ1, which are required for subsequent classical TCR signaling and T cell activation.

Source: FoodConsumer.org ; Nature Immunology