Serum 25(OH)D May Serve as Biomarker of Disease Activity in IBD

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 30, 2026 (HealthDay News) — For patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) may serve as a biomarker for disease activity, according to a study published online Sept. 11 in the Journal of Clinical Medicine.

Małgorzata Godala, Ph.D., from the Medical University of Lodz in Poland, and colleagues examined vitamin D levels and their association with disease activity in a cross-sectional study involving 129 patients with IBD and 102 healthy individuals.

The researchers found that patients with IBD had a significantly lower concentration of 25(OH)D than the control group (25.5 versus 28.8 ng/mL). Differences in 25(OH)D concentration depended on IBD activity, with vitamin D concentrations significantly higher for patients in remission than those with active IBD (28.9 ± 7.2 versus 22.3 ± 6.1 ng/mL). The association was seen for both ulcerative colitis and Crohn disease. In patients with IBD, there was a relationship between serum 25(OH)D concentrations and total dietary vitamin D intake, including vitamin D supplementation, consumption of one serving of fish/week, and disease remission, based on a multivariate adaptive regression model using spline curves.

“Serum 25(OH)D levels in IBD patients may serve as an additional, useful, and noninvasive marker of disease activity, and normalization of these levels may reduce the incidence of complications and improve remission rates, which is clinically significant,” the authors write. “However, vitamin D deficiency may be a consequence rather than a cause of active inflammation.”

Abstract/Full Text