Safety assessment of high doses of vitamin D in Wistar rats

• Grant number: 16/25100-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2017
• End date: December 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Pharmacology - Toxicology
• Principal Investigator: Rosangela Gonçalves Peccinini
• Grantee: Anita Kaori Fuentealba Fujimoto
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Farmacêuticas (FCFAR). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Vitamin D has been used in the treatment and prevention of both osteoporosis and osteomalacia. The deficiency of vitamin D is related to several autoimmune diseases and therapeutic protocols, therefore, long term high doses of vitamin D are used for the treatment of these diseases. The therapeutic use of vitamin D must be controlled in order to avoid its main adverse effects - hypercalcemia, hypercalciuria and functional impairment of organs due to mineralization. The evaluation of the safety in animal models is a relevant tool to prevent the appearance of harmful effects that compromise a patient's health and an adjustment of the post-regimen vitamin D treatment. The present project aims to submit Wistar rats to high doses of vitamin D for a prolonged period, using interspecies allometric scaling as a tool to reproduce the proposed protocol in humans, and to evaluate biochemical and histopathological parameters that allow to evaluate possible damages resulting from this exposure. (AU)