Abstract:
Background & Objective: Vitamin D (vit D) plays an important role in inflammation and pain as a result of inflammatory processes, probably through its neuroprotective function. But the association of dietary supplementation and pain improvement remains unclear. We conducted this experimental study on to evaluate the effect of vit D supplementation in Wistar rats with hypovitaminosis D due to periodontitis. Methodology: We used 20 samples of Wistar rats with induced hypovitaminosis D due to periodontitis during 7 weeks; the first week allocated for cage adaptation, in next 2 weeks, frontal teeth ligation done aimed for vit D deficiency, and during next 4 weeks vit D supplementation was done. The rats were divided into four groups; P1 (controls without ligation), P2 (ligated without vit D supplementation), P3 (vit D 4000 IU/kg supplementation), and P4 (vit D 2000 IU/kg supplementation). Pain intensity was observed by rat grimace score (RGS) at one week of cage adaptation and at four weeks after periodontitis, as well as vit D levels. Results: Vit D deficiency was observed at 6 weeks, either the RGS worsened. The improvement noticed in P2 (49.95%), P3 (34.30%), and P4 (59.23%) supplemented groups without statistically significant differences (P = 0.236; P = 0.280). The RGS showed decrease on P1 (P = 0.009), P2 (P = 0.011), and P4 (P = 0.049), but without significance in accordance to vit D improvement (P = 0.528). Conclusion: Vit D supplementation is beneficial for chronic pain when its level in the serum is low, but the effect is not statistically significant.
Keywords:
Vitamin D
,
Perception
,
Chronic pain
,
Periodontitis
,
Wistar rat
,
Supplementation