VDR and diabetes mellitus: These findings have been further investigated by Yang et al. [141], who analysed more anti-inflammatory effects of vitamin D and VDR on phosphorylated STAT5 (p-STAT5) in serum-incubated monocytes from patients with DM and uraemia caused by DN: lipopolysaccharide associated with IL-15 upregulated the expression of p-STAT5, whereas pre-treatment with 1,25-(OH)2D3 significantly inhibited this effect.