Effects of vitamin D supplementation in endometriosis: a systematic review

Dimitrios Rafail Kalaitzopoulos, Nicolas Samartzis, Aris Daniilidis, Angelos Daniilidis, Brigitte Leeners, Sofia Makieva, Konstantinos Nirgianakis, Ioannis Dedes, Julian Matthias Metzler, Patrick Imesch, Ioannis Lempesis, Ioannis G Lempesis
Reproductive biology and endocrinology : RB&E · 2022 · vol. 20(1) , pp. 176 · doi:10.1186/s12958-022-01051-9 · PMID:36578019 · PMC9795583 · W4313339977
review OA: gold CC0 ⤵ 16 in-corpus citations
📄 Open PDF View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-08 ⓘ

This systematic review found that while vitamin D supplementation reduced endometriotic lesions in vitro and in animals, human studies showed no significant improvement in pain or IVF outcomes.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-09 ⓘ

This systematic review evaluated whether vitamin D supplementation affects endometriosis outcomes by searching Medline, Cochrane, Scopus, Embase, and grey literature for interventional human studies, animal models of induced endometriosis, and in vitro models published through 01.11.2021, with primary outcomes focused on dysmenorrhea and non-cyclic pelvic pain and secondary reproductive outcomes including IVF cumulative pregnancy rate. Four human randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trials (two per pain category) found no significant benefit of vitamin D intake for dysmenorrhea (2 studies) or non-cyclic pelvic pain (2 studies), and the single available study assessing IVF outcomes reported no difference between vitamin D and placebo; the review also notes heterogeneity across studies and diversity of included interventions/models. In contrast, three of four animal studies showed regression of endometriotic implants with vitamin D, and in vitro experiments reported reduced invasion and proliferation of endometriotic lesions without affecting apoptosis. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it systematically appraises evidence on whether vitamin D supplementation improves endometriosis-associated pain and reproductive outcomes.

Read from the paper's body, not the abstract. Not a substitute for reading the paper. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

BACKGROUND: There is a growing body of human, animal and in vitro studies on vitamin D (vit D) substitution in endometriosis. The aim of this systematic review is to critically appraise and qualitatively synthesize the results of the available studies that examine the supplementation of vit D for endometriosis treatment. METHODS: A systematic search of the literature was conducted in four electronic databases (Medline, Cochrane, Scopus, Embase) and grey literature for original research articles on humans, animals and in vitro models published in any language. RESULTS: Four human studies, four animal studies and four in vitro studies were included. Quantitative synthesis of human studies showed no significant effect of vit D intake for dysmenorrhea (2 studies, 44 vit D vs 44 placebo, mean -0.71, 95% CI -1.94, 0.51) and non-cyclic pelvic pain (2 studies, 42 vit D vs 38 placebo, mean 0.34, 95% CI -0.02, 0.71). Regarding reproductive outcomes in women with endometriosis after in vitro fertilization, the only available study showed no differences between women taking vit D and women taking placebo. Three of the four included animal studies showed regression of endometriotic implants when treated with vit D. The in vitro studies demonstrated that vit D decreases invasion and proliferation of endometriotic lesions without affecting apoptosis. CONCLUSIONS: Although in vitro and animal studies suggest regression of the endometriotic implants and decrease of invasion and proliferation after vit D supplementation, this was not reflected in the results of the meta-analysis, which showed no benefit of vit D supplementation in patients with endometriosis and dysmenorrhea or non-cyclic pelvic pain as well as on the outcome of IVF treatment. However, given the heterogeneity and the diversity of the available studies, more research is required to shed light on the role of vit D supplementation in women with endometriosis.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

dysmenorrheaendometriosischronic_pelvic_pain

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Endometriosis Animals Animals Animals Animals Animals Animals Animals Animals

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (59)

Cited by (16)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-12T06:13:51.797165+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-06-02T00:34:31.346735+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK