Low vitamin D - anemia 2.2X more likely (no surprise) – meta-analysis Aug 2015

Vitamin D deficiency and the risk of anemia: a meta-analysis of observational studies

Renal Failure, Posted online on August 27, 2015.
Taisheng Liu, Shuling Zhong, Luhao Liu, Shenghua Liu, Xiaoning Li, Tianjun Zhou, and Jinye Zhang
1Department of Esophagus, Mediastinal Oncosurgery, Cancer Center of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China
2Department of Pediatrics, Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Center, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China
3Department of Urology, the first affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China
4Department of Cardiac Surgery, Guangdong General Hospital of Armed Police, Guangzhou, China
*These authors contributed equally to this work.
Address correspondence to Taisheng Liu, Department of Esophagus, Mediastinal Oncosurgery, Cancer Center of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou 510095, China. E-mail: liutaisheng2009@163.com


Aims: Anemia and vitamin D deficiency (VDD) are both very important health issues, recent accumulating evidence shows that VDD is prevalent in individuals with anemia. This meta-analysis aimed to detect a relationship between VDD and anemia.

Methods: We identified eligible studies by searching the Pub Med, Embase and Cochrane Library before October 2014. Quality assessments were performed with the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale. Heterogeneity was evaluated by Cochran’s Q test and source of heterogeneity was detected by subgroup analysis and sensitivity analysis.

Results: A total of seven studies involving 5183 participants were included in the meta-analysis. VDD was associated with an increased incidence of anemia (OR = 2.25, 95% CI = 1.47–3.44), with significant evidence of heterogeneity among these studies (p for heterogeneity <0.001, I2 = 84.0%). The subgroup and sensitivity analysis confirmed the stability of the results and no publication bias was detected.

Conclusion: Our outcomes showed that VDD increased the risk of developing anemia. More researches are warranted to clarify an understanding of the association between VDD and risk of anemia.

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