Abstract:

Introduction. Vitamin D plays a role in health overall, but hypovitaminosis D still occurs throughout the world. HIV/AIDS patients are prone to suffer from hypovitaminosis D because of the infection itself and the side effects of antiretroviral therapy. Various effort have been tried to improve the immune status of HIV/AIDS patients, one of them is by adding vitamin D. Vitamin D acts as an antiinflammatory so that it can prevent apoptosis of CD4 T cells and increase CD4 cell count. Methods. This is a randomized control trial add on a study that aims to determine the effect of vitamin D to increase in CD4 counts of HIV / AIDS patients who have received antiretroviral drugs. Subjects were HIV / AIDS patients who had received antiretroviral drugs. A total of 20 subjects were divided randomly into two groups; one group received vitamin D (calcitriol 0.5 mcg per day) for eight weeks, and the other group that received a placebo. Each group was measured of CD4 cell count before and after treatment. Results. There was a significant increase in the CD4 cell count of the vitamin D group (p = 0.046), but not in the CD4 cell count of both groups (p = 0.985). The comparison of mean CD4 cell counts between groups before treatment was not significantly different (p = 0.057), but after treatment, it became significantly different (p = 0.040). Conclusion. Vitamin D has been successful in increasing CD4 cell count in the vitamin D group, and it is recommended to give HIV / AIDS patients to increase CD4 cell count.

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