vitamin d: is there a new era?

Background: in recent decades, much interest has been focused on investigating new roles of vitamin d in human body beyond the mineral-ion homeostasis. methods: by searching medical databases such as pubmed, over 16000 articles were found which have been published since 2000 on novel aspects of vitamin d in health and diseases. results: of great interest was the effects of vitamin d on decreasing the risk of several chronic illnesses, including common cancers, autoimmune, infectious, and cardiovascular diseases. in this review, the new roles of vitamin d that have recently been investigated were addressed. conclusions: due to the vast prevalence of vitamin d deficiency worldwide, it seems that time has come to conduct well-designed clinical trials and meta-analysis to explore the effectiveness of vitamin d supplementation in treatment of common diseases. finally, the progression in cellular and molecular methods and technology will shed new lights on vitamin d roles in health and disease.