Höck, Anna Dorothea · In vivo (Athens, Greece) · 2014
This review explains how vitamin D3 deficiency may contribute to severe fatigue and depression in conditions like ME/CFS. Vitamin D3 helps regulate the immune system, and without enough of it, the body's natural defenses become unbalanced, allowing infections and inflammation to persist. The authors suggest that vitamin D3 supplements might help prevent or improve these chronic conditions.
For ME/CFS patients, understanding whether vitamin D3 deficiency drives immune dysfunction is clinically important because vitamin D3 is an inexpensive, safe intervention. This review provides immunological plausibility for why many ME/CFS patients report low vitamin D3 levels and why supplementation might be beneficial, linking a measurable biomarker to disease mechanisms.
This review does not prove that vitamin D3 deficiency causes ME/CFS, only that it may contribute to immune dysfunction common in ME/CFS. It does not establish whether correcting vitamin D3 deficiency reverses fatigue or improves outcomes in ME/CFS specifically, nor does it identify which ME/CFS patients would benefit from supplementation. The abstract does not specify the strength or quality of evidence for individual claims.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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Primary citation
Höck, Anna Dorothea (2014). Review: Vitamin D3 deficiency results in dysfunctions of immunity with severe fatigue and depression in a variety of diseases.. In vivo (Athens, Greece). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24425848/
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-hck-2014-review-vitamin,
author = {Höck, Anna Dorothea},
title = {Review: Vitamin D3 deficiency results in dysfunctions of immunity with severe fatigue and depression in a variety of diseases.},
journal = {In vivo (Athens, Greece)},
year = {2014},
note = {PubMed: 24425848},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/hck-2014-review-vitamin},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-30. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/hck-2014-review-vitamin
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