Six-year follow-up of a trial of antenatal Vitamin D for asthma reduction

Augusto A. Litonjua, Vincent J. Carey, Nancy Laranjo, Benjamin J. Stubbs, Hooman Mirzakhani, George T. O'Connor, Megan Sandel, Avraham Beigelman, Leonard B. Bacharier, Robert S. Zeiger, Michael Schatz, Bruce W. Hollis, Scott T. Weiss

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

124 Scopus citations

Abstract

BACKGROUND We previously reported the results of a trial of prenatal vitamin D supplementation to prevent asthma and recurrent wheeze in young children, which suggested that supplementation provided a protective effect at the age of 3 years. We followed the children through the age of 6 years to determine the course of asthma and recurrent wheeze. METHODS In this follow-up study, investigators and participants remained unaware of the treatment assignments through the children's sixth birthday. We aimed to determine whether, when maternal levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D were taken into account, children born to mothers who had received 4400 IU of vitamin D3 per day during pregnancy (vitamin D group) would have a lower incidence of asthma and recurrent wheeze at the age of 6 years than would those born to mothers who had received 400 IU of vitamin D3 per day (control group). Time-to-event methods were used to compare the treatment groups with respect to time to the onset of asthma or recurrent wheeze. Multivariate methods were used to compare longitudinal measures of lung function between the treatment groups. RESULTS There was no effect of maternal vitamin D supplementation on asthma and recurrent wheeze in either an intention-to-treat analysis or an analysis with stratification according to the maternal 25-hydroxyvitamin D level during pregnancy. There was no effect of prenatal vitamin D supplementation on most of the prespecified secondary outcomes. We found no effects of prenatal supplementation on spirometric indexes. Although there was a very small effect on airway resistance as measured by impulse oscillometry, this finding was of uncertain significance. CONCLUSIONS Vitamin D supplementation during the prenatal period alone did not influence the 6-year incidence of asthma and recurrent wheeze among children who were at risk for asthma.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)525-533
Number of pages9
JournalNew England Journal of Medicine
Volume382
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 6 2020

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Six-year follow-up of a trial of antenatal Vitamin D for asthma reduction'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this