Blacks not taking mulitvitamins were 5X more likely to be vitamin D insufficient– June 2011

 

Correlates and Prevalence of Insufficient 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Status in Black and White Older Adults: The Health, Aging and Body Composition Study.

J Am Geriatr Soc. 2011 Jun 13. doi: 10.1111/j.1532-5415.2011.03476.x.
Shea MK, Houston DK dhausman@uga.edu, Tooze JA, Davis CC, Johnson MA, Hausman DB, Cauley JA, Bauer DC, Tylavsky F, Harris TB, Kritchevsky SB; for the Health, Aging and Body Composition Study.

  • Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina;
  • Department of Foods and Nutrition, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia;
  • Division of Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania;
  • Department of Medicine, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, California; *Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Tennessee, Memphis; and
  • National Institute of Aging, Bethesda, Maryland.


OBJECTIVES: To determine the prevalence and correlates of vitamin D insufficiency in black and white older adults.
DESIGN: Cross-sectional.
SETTING: Health, Aging and Body Composition Study.
PARTICIPANTS Nine hundred seventy-seven black and 1,604 white adults aged 70 to 81.
MEASUREMENTS: Logistic regression and classification and regression tree analysis were used to identify correlates of vitamin D insufficiency (25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) <30?ng/mL) separately in blacks and whites.

RESULTS: The prevalence of 25(OH)D insufficiency was 84% in blacks and 57% in whites. Seventy-six percent of blacks and 56% of whites did not take a multivitamin;

  • those who did not take a multivitamin were more likely to be vitamin D insufficient (odds ratio (OR)=5.17 (95% confidence interval (CI)=3.47-7.70) for blacks;
  • OR=2.56, 95% CI=2.05-3.19 for white).

Additional risk factors for vitamin D insufficiency were vitamin D-containing supplement use, female sex, and obesity in blacks; and winter season, low dietary vitamin D intake, obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and female sex in whites.

CONCLUSION: Vitamin D insufficiency was more prevalent in blacks than whites. Not consuming a multivitamin increased the odds of vitamin D insufficiency in blacks and whites. Knowledge of additional risk factors such as dietary intake and comorbid conditions may help identify older adults who are likely to be vitamin D insufficient.

© 2011, Copyright the Authors. Journal compilation © 2011, The American Geriatrics Society.
PMID: 21668915
– – – – – –

Note: People improving their health by taking multivitamins also tend to improve their health with exercise, outdoors, etc.

See also VitaminDWiki

3157 visitors, last modified 29 Jun, 2011,
Printer Friendly Follow this page for updates