Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory autoimmune disease that occurs commonly in old people. Hot spring radon therapy is widely practiced in Central Europe and Japan for relief from the painful symptoms. The usual duration of a spa treatment is a week or two, and the relief is temporary. This article reports on the near-complete recovery of a patient who had been suffering from RA for 10 years. The patient received 15 months of low-dose radon and γ-radiation therapy in a room that reproduced the conditions of a radon spa. The daily 40-minute exposure in the therapy room was supplemented by ten 6-minute radio-nebulizer treatments. The inflammation markers C-reactive protein and matrix metalloproteinase 3 declined strongly to the normal level of 0.07 mg/dL and the near-normal level of 48.9 ng/mL, respectively. After the patient\'s return to good health, the frequency of the visits was reduced to twice each month. The patient\'s protection systems appear to have adapted to stimulated conditions, sufficiently to sustain the recovery from RA. Such a long-term course of treatments and follow-up maintenance could be carried out in any hospital that has these low-dose radiation therapy rooms. The therapy could be scheduled to suit patient availability.

BACKGROUND: Vitamin D exerts profound effects on both adaptive and innate immune functions involved in the development and course of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. As the incidence of vitamin D insufficiency is surprisingly high in the general population, experimental studies have started to investigate whether vitamin D levels (measured as serum 25 hydroxy vitamin D-25[OH]D) are correlated with immune cells and clinical parameters.
OBJECTIVE: The aim of the present research was to investigate serum vitamin D status in a case-control study in children with asthma and to study associations between vitamin D levels and certain immunological parameters.
METHODS: A case control study of thirty-nine children with clinically controlled asthma was enrolled to assess the relationship between serum vitamin D concentrations and disease activity. Vitamin D was assayed with a radioimmunoassay kit. We evaluated the relationship between vitamin D concentrations and forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV(1)), and the FEV(1)/FVC ratio. Correlations between inflammatory mediators, Th1, Th2, Th17, and regulatory T cells (Treg) and vitamin D were investigated.
RESULTS: Only 15.38% of our asthmatic children had a sufficient serum 25(OH)D (≥30 ng/mL) whereas 80% of healthy children expressed sufficient levels. Deficient values of vitamin D (<20 ng/mL) were observed in 17 (43.59%) asthmatic patients (14.40 ± 3.30 ng/mL; P = 0.0001). Deficiency was not observed in controls. Th1/Th2 ratio was significantly correlated to 25(OH) D level (r = 0.698; P = 0.0001). A significant negative correlation was observed between serum interleukin-17 and vitamin D levels in young asthmatics (r = -0.617; P = 0.001). A significant correlation was observed between CD25(+)Foxp3(+) Treg cells and vitamin D values in asthmatics (r = 0.368; P = 0.021).
CONCLUSIONS: Even in a southern Mediterranean country, hypovitaminosis D is frequent in children with asthma. Our findings suggest that vitamin D is an important promoter of T cell regulation in vivo in young asthmatics.