Olmesartan is commonly marketed as Benicar and is an angiotensin II receptor antagonist that is used to treat sarcoidosis.
Sarcoidosis is a hyper-inflammatory disorder where a person may be hyper-sensitive to sunlight amongst other things. The secosteroid hormone is vital within the symptomology and etiology of sarcoidosis.
When sources of vitamin D were removed from the diet of a patient, the symptoms were dramatically reduced. The same happened when the concentration of the 25-hydroxyvitamin D metabolite was reduced.
Sarcoidosis has been around for more than 100 years and the cause of this disease is still unknown.
When Olmesartan is used, it helps to reduce the amount of vitamin D that can be absorbed by the skin and therefore reduces the amount of inflammation that a person can experience. While many patients experience the inflammation by eating anything with vitamin D or stepping out into the sun, the amount of units that a person can be safely exposed to after taking Olmesartan dramatically increases.
Some sarcoidosis patients, according to Clinical Medicine & Health Research, experienced toxicity at 9000 IU on vitamin D. After taking Olmesartan, the toxicity could be tolerated at 150,000 IU, which is a considerable improvement.
What’s unique about Olmesartan is that it is not a steroid and therefore does not have the dramatic side effects. Instead, it helps to reduce the amount of vitamin D that soaks into the skin, allowing people to experience a higher level of toxicity prior to experiencing inflammation. Since Olmesartan is a receptor antagonist, it works against the hormones that are directly related to sarcoidosis in order to prevent the reactions from taking place in the first place.