Researchers at Vanderbilt University have made some interesting findings in their patient population with chronic urticaria.

Urticaria is the medical term for hives.  It can occur as an acute problem or as a chronic one.  Acute hives are usually due to a medicine reaction, insect bite or a food allergy.  Chronic hives are more difficult to classify as to cause.  Sometimes the cause is readily identifiable, but sometimes it isn’t.

What the scientists at Vanderbilt have discovered is that there is a certain percentage of people with chronic hives, (urticaria), who are vitamin D deficient.  Moreover, their hives resolve when their Vitamin D is brought back into the normal range.

Vitamin D acts on cells through a nuclear receptor called the Vitamin D receptor (VDR), which controls the activity of more than 50 genes.

One of these is the gene that controls T regulatory cells, and thus, can have a profound effect on immune function.  Improving this gene function allows the “righting of the immune ship”, thus healing the chronic hives.