Vitamin D Supplementation in HIV

Optimal vitamin D (vit D) concentration and metabolism are essential for normal immune function, growth, muscle, bone, and inflammatory status in children, adolescents and adults with HIV/AIDS. The impact of vit D supplementation will be evaluated for safety and efficacy using clinically important outcomes, and this will overcome the critical barrier for use of vit D supplementation in research and clinical care. Inexpensive and easy to administer, vit D supplementation may prove to be an effective and feasible treatment for symptoms and prevention of side effects for people of all ages living with HIV/AIDS in the US and around the world.

The study is a 12-month randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled study of vitamin D3 (vit D) supplementation using 7000IU/day based on evidence from the Vit D Dose Finding Study-IRB 09-007332 in 58 subjects with both Perinatally Acquired (PA) and Behaviorally Acquired (BA) HIV/AIDS to assess the long-term safety in terms of serum calcium and 25OHD concentrations, and efficacy in terms of the effect of vit D supplementation on 25OHD, cathelicidin, growth (pre- and peripubertal participants), body composition, bone, muscle, immune and inflammatory status and HIV/AIDS disease severity and progression.

Primary Hypotheses:

H1: Vit D supplementation is safe and does not result in an increased incidence of elevated serum calcium (above age-specific range) associated with elevated serum 25OHD (>160 ng/mL) in treated subjects compared with the subjects receiving placebo.

H2: Vit D supplementation is significantly associated with both increased 25D and cathelicidin in treated subjects compared with subjects receiving placebo.