Effectiveness of Vitamin D3 in Facilitating the Therapeutic Progression of Healing Diabetic Foot Ulcers

Background: Today’s, diabetes and its complications have afflicted a large population all over the world, so that it is estimated that its prevalence in all age groups will reach from 2.8% in 2000 to 4.4% in 2030. It is well known that vitamin D may cause rapid wound healing and anti-inflammatory. Objective: Regarding the importance of the quality of life of diabetic patients and the improvement of chronic diabetic foot ulcers, this paper aims to investigate the efficacy of vitamin D3 on the healing of diabetic foot ulcers. The present research is conducted as a randomized controlled trial. Methods: Forty patients are randomly divided into two experimental groups (vitamin D supplementation) and control (placebo) using available sampling method based on the inclusion criteria. Then, all patients are evaluated for ulcer debridement every two weeks (0 (T0), 2 (T1), 4 (T2), 6 (T3), 8 (T4), 10 (T5) and 12 (T6)) after the intervention. The collected data are analyzed using SPSS-23 software. Results: The experimental group significantly decreased the ulcer length (-1.6±0.82 cm vs. -0.5 ± 1.39 cm, P = 0.005), ulcer width (-1.7±1.20 cm vs. -0.85 ± 1.22 cm, P = 0.025) and ulcer depth (-0.6±0.50 cm vs. -0.25 ± 0.44 cm, P = 0.025), after 12 weeks of intervention. It can be seen that Vitamin D had a significant relationship with all stages of the wound-healing process (P<0.01). Conclusions: In patients with chronic diabetic foot ulcers, the use of vitamin D supplementation can improve the wound. Moreover, vitamin D had a significant relationship with all stages of the wound-healing process except re-epithelialization and angiogenesis.