In Need of Vitamin D

Sitting in the sun can help you get healthy doses of vitamin D. But it seems some people with a certain form of arthritis are not getting enough of the sun's rays.

Low levels of vitamin D seem to be common among patients with psoriatic arthritis - a type of arthritis that often happens with skin redness and irritation.

Get more vitamin D if you psoriatic arthritis.

Zahi Touma, M.D., of the Centre for Prognosis Studies in the Rheumatic Diseases in Toronto, and colleagues set out to see how common vitamin D deficiency/insufficiency was among people with psoriatic arthritis. They wanted to find out if vitamin D levels among these patients changed with the seasons, or if geography played a role.

The researchers found that more than half of the 302 participants in the study did not have enough vitamin D. 

These vitamin D levels did not seem to be affected by the time of year or whether the person lived in a northern or southern area.

Dr. Touma and colleagues did not find any link between disease activity (the severity of the psoriatic arthritis) and vitamin D levels, which were determined by measuring 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the blood.

The study is published in Arthritis Care & Research.