Vitiligo: The Role of Diet and Supplements

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Vitiligo, a disorder of skin pigmentation, is part of the vast array of autoimmune diseases, for which nutritional strategy is increasingly taken into account by scientific research.

Alongside assessment studies of the role of diet in the prevention or management of vitiligo patients, there’s a multiplication of paper and web publications.

A lot of these contain infomation about nutritional supplements and eating habits recommended without any logic as well as scientific foundation.

The newly published work on Dermatologic clinics aims to make and sort out information already gathered in the academic field.

Most supplements are useful in drug therapy due to their antioxidant and immunomodulating activity.

Regarding Vitamin B12 and Folic acid, they have shown to promote the process of skin pigmentation both alone or associated with phototherapy.

Also in association with zinc, which can offer a slight advantage when combined with topical steroids.

Moreover studies on animals suggest that a lot of these supplements may have some efficacy as monotherapy.

For example in green tea the Egcg decrease inflammation and the formation of immunocomplexes.

Also Piperine, the main black pepper alkaloid, has already shown to stimulate melanocyte replication when there is no exposure to UV radiation.

Moreover in animal models with vitiligo this alkaloid showed potentials.

The work examines over 10 compounds whose studies are promising and deserve further study in the form of well-designed and large clinical trials.

Grimes PE, Nashawati R. Dermatol Clin. 2017 Apr; 35(2):235-243.