Auhtors: Brandi ML
PMID: 22460535 PMCID: PMC3213838
Abstract
Many arguments are favouring a renewed interest in vitamin D physiology, with a consequent increase in the number of scientific publications and media reports (1). Not surprisingly, TIME magazine nominated vitamin D as one of the “top medical breakthroughs” in the December issue of 2007. This vigorous increase of interest in vitamin D is powered by the spectacular insights into the pivotal regulatory role of vitamin D with regard to pleiotropic functions, by the data on worldwide trend to nutritional vitamin insufficiency (2) and by new knowledge on intracrine and paracrine actions of vitamin D metabolites (3).
Despite the fact that vitamin D is still called and known as a vitamin, it actually comprises a group of very closely interrelated hormonal compounds also related to the other main calciotropic hormone, the parathyroid hormone. Therefore, vitamin D is now viewed from a controller of calcium homeostasis (calciotropic) to an hormone with pleiotropic actions.
