Frequency of Low Vitamin D Levels in Patients Seeking Treatment at a Tertiary Care Centre

Abstract

Introduction: Vitamin D deficiency is said to be widely prevalent. Low vitamin D levels have direct negative effects in the musculoskeletal system and have been linked with numerous other disease conditions. Data on vitamin D levels are very sparse in our country. Method: This is a retrospective study of laboratory data from April 14, 2015, to April 13 ,2016. The data included vitamin D levels of all patients who had undergone testing during the above-mentioned period. Age and gender distribution analysis of the tests were done.  Result: There was a total of 383 patients comprising of 235 females (61.4%) and 148 (38.6%) males. Regarding vitamin D levels, 128 (33.4%) had normal levels, 118 (30.8%) had vitamin D insufficiency and 137 (35.8%) had vitamin D deficiency. Females had lower vitamin D levels as compared to males, especially in the elderly population with more than 86.8 % having low vitamin D levels as compared to males (56.5%). Conclusion: In this study vitamin D levels were found to be not sufficient in almost two third of the cases. This study also further supports the evidence of the widespread lack of vitamin D especially in the elderly women. More population-based studies are required to make strong health care policies regarding this.