Papers of the Week

Background Fibromyalgia syndrome is characterised by extensive muscular pain and chronic fatigue. Among the pharmacologic and other nutrient supplements that have been studied, Vitamin D has garnered attention owing to the critical role it plays in inflammatory and pain pathways. We conducted a systematic literature review to examine the efficacy of vitamin D supplemen-tation in improving the clinical status of the patients and alleviating the symptoms of fibrom-yalgia. Methods We searched Cochrane CENTRAL, PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus, grey literature (medrXiv and biorXiv) for observational studies, randomized controlled trials, case-control studies, and case reports published in English from January 2011 to May 2021, using the terms vitamin D and fibromyalgia or FMS. References were reviewed manually and articles were only included if they were specific in their diagnosis of fibromyalgia. Results 2651 studies were retrieved, with 12 studies fulfilling the inclusion criteria. 11 out of these 12 studies were of high quality and showed low risk of bias. 11 of these also demonstrated de-finitive improvement in clinical status and various outcome measures following supplementa-tion with Vitamin D. Conclusions Our study emphasises an association between supplementation of vitamin D and improve-ment of the clinical condition fibromyalgia through a systematic review of high-quality stud-ies. The study also identified areas for future scope for research that is needed for standardis-ing the detection and treatment of this chronic condition through cost-effective supplements such as Vitamin D.