SERUM VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY, A NEW EPIDEMIC

Abstract

Introduction: Vitamin D deficiency has profound adverse effects on health. Serum calcium, phosphorus and even alkaline
phasphatase cannot predict underlying vitamin D deficiency. Objectives: 1. To determine the frequency of vitamin D deficiency in outpatient
private clinic 2. To determine the relation of vitamin D deficiency with the presenting symptom of bone or body aches. To see the relation of
its deficiency to the serum calcium, alkaline phosphate and phosphate levels. Study design: Descriptive study. Setting: One of the local private
clinic. Materials and Methods: 800 patients who presented to the clinic due to any ailment, having presenting complains with bone or body
aches or not, were included in this study. The duration of study was 7 months from June to December 2008. Results: The study showed among
total 33% (n=264) were male and 67% (n=536) were female. 33 patients (4.1 %) were below age of 20 years, 364 patients (45.2%) were having
age between 20-40 years, 252 (31.5%) were between 41 -60 years, 143 (17.8%) were between 61 -80 years and only 8 patients (1 %) were above
80years. Over all vitamin D present in sufficient amount (>30 ng/ml) in only 4 patients (0.5%), reaming patients (n=796,99.5%) were deficient
in vitamin D were further divided into those who were having deficiency (serum level <20 ng/ml) (n=636, 79%) and insufficiency (serum level
between 21-29 ng/ml) (n=160,20%). All the deficient patients were having normal serum calcium and phosphate levels and only 33 patients
were having modestly raised serum alkaline phosphate. Among the sample only 318 (39.7%) were having bone or body aches as a presenting
feature while remaining 482 (60.3%) were having no pains. More ever pain has got insignificant relation to any level of serum vitamin D level
(p-value=0.201), however younger deficient patients were having lesser chance of bone or body aches as compared to age more then 60 year
(p-value<0.001). Conclusions: Vitamin D deficiency is more prevalent in our community, as compared to published data, targeting young
population. Vitamin D supplementation should be planned to decrease its varied and multidimensional ill effects on health.