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©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Nov 27, 2025; 17(11): 112315
Published online Nov 27, 2025. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v17.i11.112315
Published online Nov 27, 2025. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v17.i11.112315
Beyond bones: Revisiting the role of vitamin D in chronic liver disease
Rodrigo Guerrero-Guerrero, Osvely Mendez-Guerrero, Anaisa Carranza-Carrasco, Nalu Navarro-Alvarez, Department of Gastroenterology, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, Distrito Federal 14080, Mexico
Farid Tejeda, Department of Molecular Biology, Universidad Panamericana, School of Medicine, Distrito Federal 03920, Mexico
Astrid Ardon-Lopez, Nalu Navarro-Alvarez, Department of Surgery, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Denver, CO 80045, United States
Co-first authors: Rodrigo Guerrero-Guerrero and Osvely Mendez-Guerrero.
Author contributions: Guerrero-Guerrero R and Mendez-Guerrero O contribute equally to this study as co-first authors; Guerrero-Guerrero R performed the literature review, drafted the manuscript, and created the artwork; Mendez-Guerrero O proposed the central idea, structured the review, wrote and provided feedback; Carranza-Carrasco A and Tejeda F contributed to drafting specific sections of the manuscript; Ardon-Lopez A assisted with figure development; Navarro-Alvarez N wrote, reviewed, edited and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Nalu Navarro-Alvarez, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán, 15 Vasco de Quiroga, Distrito Federal 14080, Mexico. nalu.navarroa@incmnsz.mx
Received: July 24, 2025
Revised: August 14, 2025
Accepted: October 20, 2025
Published online: November 27, 2025
Processing time: 126 Days and 9.6 Hours
Revised: August 14, 2025
Accepted: October 20, 2025
Published online: November 27, 2025
Processing time: 126 Days and 9.6 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Vitamin D plays diverse roles in chronic liver disease beyond bone health, including modulation of fibrosis, immune responses, bile acid metabolism, and oxidative stress via vitamin D receptor signaling. Deficiency is common across liver disease etiologies and linked to worse outcomes. Although preclinical data are promising, clinical trials have yielded inconsistent results. This review summarizes the mechanistic and clinical evidence for vitamin D in autoimmune, viral, alcoholic, and metabolic liver diseases, emphasizing its potential as a modifiable factor and the need to define patient subgroups most likely to benefit from supplementation.