Toxicol Lett. 2016 Apr 25;248:9-15. doi: 10.1016/j.toxlet.2016.02.013. Epub 2016 Mar 2.

Early indicators of survival following exposure to mustard gas: Protective role of 25(OH)D.
Das LM1, Binko AM1, Traylor ZP1, Duesler LR1, Dynda SM1, Debanne S2, Lu KQ3.

Abstract
The use of sulfur mustard (SM) as a chemical weapon for warfare has once again assumed center stage, endangering civilian and the military safety. SM causes rapid local skin vesication and late-onset systemic toxicity. Most studies on SM rely on obtaining tissue and blood for characterizing burn pathogenesis and assessment of systemic pathology, respectively. However the present study focuses on developing a non-invasive method to predict mortality from high dose skin SM exposure. We demonstrate that exposure to SM leads to a dose dependent increase in wound area size on the dorsal surface of mice that is accompanied by a progressive loss in body weight loss, blood cytopenia, bone marrow destruction, and death. Thus our model utilizes local skin destruction and systemic outcome measures as variables to predict mortality in a novel skin-based model of tissue injury. Based on our recent work using vitamin D(25(OH)D) as an intervention to treat toxicity from SM-related compounds, we explored the use of 25(OH)D in mitigating the toxic effects of SM. Here we show that 25(OH)D offers protection against SM and is the first known demonstration of an intervention that prevents SM-induced mortality. Furthermore, 25(OH)D represents a safe, novel, and readily translatable potential countermeasure following mass toxic exposure.
Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd.. All rights reserved.

KEYWORDS:
25(OH)D; Inflammation; Intervention; Mortality model; Sulfur mustard

PMID: 26940683 DOI: 10.1016/j.toxlet.2016.02.013

Jeff T Bowles: Being the author of the best-selling book on Vitamin D3 in the world, and given the topic of the book was the miraculous results of my one year experiment of taking HIGH DOSES of vitamin D3, puts me in the unique position of being the sounding board for many hundreds if not a few thousands of others who have embarked on their own high dose vitamin d3 experiment. Nobody on planet earth has this amount of unusual and exciting knowledge, and I will be sharing it with you in this series of 100 short articles describing a disease and some sort of amazing result achieved with high dose D3 therapy.

Sincerely Jeff T. Bowles