Vitamin D defficency and depression. A report of two cases

In recent years, many probable causes or associated factors for depression have been proposed. Many of them are related to the ingestion or lack of some nutrients in the diet, including poor nutrition, chronic inflammation related to some foods and lack of proper supplements. Altered microbiota and the absence in the diet of some probiotics and psychobiotics have also been suggested as probable cause. Another element that has been proposed to have a possible role in depression is Vitamin D deficiency, although its role in depression still presents controversies. Supplementation of Vitamin D has been proved to be useful in some cases; although other authors suggest that the supplementation of Vitamin d has no effect. In this study, two cases of patients with depression and low vitamin D levels are presented. The first case is a 19-year-old female teenager with a history of one year of depressive symptoms, learning difficulties at school, fatigue, low motivation and poor previous response to antidepressants. The second case is a 17-year-old female teenager, with previous history of ADHD with good response to Methylphenidate, and the onset of depressive symptoms for about 6 months before psychiatric assessment. Supplementation of Vitamin D was added to their antidepressive treatment and evolution is discussed. Results showed that the addition of Vitamin D might have help them to recover faster from depression.