Low levels of Vitamin D in UAE juveniles (virtually none had 30 ng) – Jan 2018

Vitamin D status among the juvenile population: A retrospective study

The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Vol 175, Jan 2018, Pages 49-54
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsbmb.2017.01.005

Highlights

• First study cohort among juvenile population in the United Arab Emirates.
• Serum 25(OH)D concentrations of 7883 of the juveniles 1–18 years old were studied retrospectively.
• 24.6% of these patients had low serum levels of 25(OH)D (<30 nmol/L) and 26.8% had inadequate levels (30–50 nmol/L).
• 57% of UAE nationals and 43.7% of patients from other nationalities were found to have serum 25(OH)D less than 50 nmol/L.
• Age is the most important factor among all the analysed factors affecting the levels of serum 25(OH)D.

 Download the PDF from VitaminDWiki

Vitamin D deficiency is a clinical problem and recently we have shown that 82.5% of our entire study cohort had inadequate serum 25(OH)D levels. In this study, we analysed serum 25(OH)D levels of juvenile patients admitted to the Burjeel Hospital of VPS Health care in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE) from October 2012 to September 2014. Out of a total of 7883 juvenile patients considered in this study, almost 58.1% of females and 43.3% of males in the age group of 1–18 years were found to have low serum 25(OH)D levels (<50 nmol/L). According to the coefficient of variation, females had significantly higher variability among juveniles (63.8%) than males (49.9%). Among the juveniles group of patients, age appears to be an important determining factor for defining vitamin D deficiency.
The risk of deficiency (<30 nmol/L) was found to be present in 31.4% of patients in the age group of 10–12 years, followed by 50.4% of patients in the age group of 13–15 years and 52.9% of patients in the age group of 16–18 years. The analysed age groups of females were found to have lower levels of 25(OH)D than males. It is important and perhaps alarming to note that such high rate of vitamin D deficiency is present in the juvenile age.