Vitamin d who is a risk of deficiency

Reproduced with permission. Health professionals do not generally need to test vitamin D status in asymptomatic people in at-risk groups before advising them to take a vitamin D supplement. The NICE PH56 guidance includes a health economic analysis demonstrating that the costs of testing for vitamin D status and offering targeted supplementation to those found to have profound deficiency is less cost effective than offering universal supplementation.

If patients have symptoms, signs, or abnormal laboratory results suggesting vitamin D deficiency e. More information on the management of profound vitamin D deficiency can be found in the review article co-authored by Professor Simon Pearce and Dr Tim Cheetham.

Health professionals may prescribe a licensed vitamin D supplement, or recommend an over-the-counter supplement containing the RNI, at their discretion. Health professionals should recommend and record vitamin D supplement use among at-risk groups whenever possible.

Computerised prompts on vitamin D should be integrated into healthcare and social care systems to support health professionals in making this a routine activity. NICE PH56 also recommends that developers of standardised electronic and handheld maternity notes and developers of personal child health records 'the red book' should add specific questions about the use of vitamin D supplements. Healthcare professionals should help to increase awareness of the importance of vitamin D.

Training and continuing professional development activities represent good opportunities to do this. Healthcare, social care and other relevant practitioners in contact with at-risk groups need to become aware of local policies and procedures in relation to vitamin D; healthcare professionals should recommend Healthy Start vitamins to eligible women for eligibility criteria, see the guidance glossary or let women eligible or not know where they can buy them. People in at-risk groups may be reluctant to take a vitamin D supplement owing to the costs involved, and the difficulty in obtaining a supplement containing the RNI.

NICE PH56 seeks to address these issues by recommending that the Department of Health should work with the manufacturers of vitamin D supplements to ensure that all products containing the RNI for vitamin D are made more widely available and at an affordable price. The guidance also recommends that local authorities should consider providing free vitamin D supplements for at-risk groups. People in at-risk groups may be reluctant to take a vitamin D supplement without having a test to determine their vitamin D status beforehand.

If this situation arises, healthcare professionals may wish to reassure these patients about the safety of taking a supplement containing the RNI, and to highlight the potential health benefits of doing so, in terms of preventing rickets, osteomalacia, falls, and fractures.

The role of sunlight in preventing vitamin D deficiency may seem to conflict with sun protection messages. Contact a health care provider if you have questions about your health. What is vitamin D deficiency? Vitamin D deficiency means that you are not getting enough vitamin D to stay healthy. Why do I need vitamin D and how do I get it? How much vitamin D do I need? What causes vitamin D deficiency? You can become deficient in vitamin D for different reasons: You don't get enough vitamin D in your diet You don't absorb enough vitamin D from food a malabsorption problem You don't get enough exposure to sunlight.

Your liver or kidneys cannot convert vitamin D to its active form in the body. You take medicines that interfere with your body's ability to convert or absorb vitamin D Who is at risk of vitamin D deficiency?

Some people are at higher risk of vitamin D deficiency: Breastfed infants, because human milk is a poor source of vitamin D. If you are breastfeeding , give your infant a supplement of IU of vitamin D every day.

Older adults, because your skin doesn't make vitamin D when exposed to sunlight as efficiently as when you were young, and your kidneys are less able to convert vitamin D to its active form. People with dark skin, which has less ability to produce vitamin D from the sun. People with disorders such as Crohn's disease or celiac disease who don't handle fat properly, because vitamin D needs fat to be absorbed.

People who have obesity , because their body fat binds to some vitamin D and prevents it from getting into the blood. People who have had gastric bypass surgery People with osteoporosis People with chronic kidney or liver disease. Dementia involves a decline in thinking, behavior, and memory that negatively affects daily life.

The aforementioned study analyzed more than 1, people ages 65 or older who did not have dementia at the beginning of the study. Compared with people who had normal vitamin D levels, those with low levels of the vitamin had a 53 percent increased risk of developing all-cause dementia, while those who were severely deficient had a percent increased risk, researchers observed.

Considering the devastating toll that dementia can have on patients and their families alike, those findings may seem alarming. Nonetheless, they theorized that the sunshine vitamin might help clear plaques in the brain that are linked to dementia.

The connection between low levels of vitamin D and diabetes is clear. Previous research points to these mixed results. A review published in March in Biochemical Journal found that when vitamin D is deficient, many cellular processes in the body begin to break down, and this sets the stage for the onset of diseases such as diabetes. A study published in May in the journal Clinical Cancer Research found a link between low blood levels of vitamin D and aggressive prostate cancer in European American and African American men.

Researchers looked at vitamin D levels in men ages 40 to 79 who were undergoing prostate biopsies. The connection between vitamin D and prostate cancer seemed especially strong in African American men, with results suggesting that African American men with low vitamin D levels were more likely to test positive for the cancer than the other men with normal vitamin D levels.

Prostate cancer occurs mostly in older men, with the average age of diagnosis being about 66, according to the American Cancer Society. A small study of subjects published in August in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that men with severe erectile dysfunction ED had significantly lower vitamin D levels than men with mild ED.

For instance, a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology suggested that lack of vitamin D was indeed linked with arterial stiffness in healthy people. One of the requirements for achieving an erection is proper function of the arteries, which are responsible for supplying the penis with blood so it can become engorged.

Today, over children and adolescents, on the other hand, the percentage of participants who took vitamin D supplements has remained relatively stable throughout the years [ 13 ]. Another proposed hypothesis for why vitamin D levels seem to be decreasing in the younger population is the exponential increase in technology such as big-screen television, computers, and gaming devices, making them inclined to stay indoors as compared to prior generations and, consequently, having less sunlight exposure.

Additionally, because the average age of retirement in the United States is around 65 years, participants under this cutoff age may be spending most of their days working indoors during the time the sun is out.

Our study showed that there was a statistically significant higher rate of cancer among the vitamin D sufficient population compared to those who were vitamin D deficient, thus contradicting strong evidence that vitamin D reduces the incidence and death rates of breast, prostate, colon, and ovarian cancers [ 8 ]. One factor that may contribute to this seemingly contradictory relationship may be the administration of vitamin D and other dietary supplements to patients diagnosed with cancer by their healthcare providers, whereas the vitamin D deficient population may be at high risk for cancer or even unaware of existing cancers and, consequently, not treated yet.

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Additionally, articles published within Cureus should not be deemed a suitable substitute for the advice of a qualified health care professional. Do not disregard or avoid professional medical advice due to content published within Cureus. The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Consent was obtained by all participants in this study.

Animal subjects: All authors have confirmed that this study did not involve animal subjects or tissue. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Journal List Cureus v. Published online Jun 5. Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Hershey Medical Center. Corresponding author. Naveen R. Parva moc. Received May 12; Accepted Jun 1. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Abstract Introduction 1,dihydroxyvitamin D3 cholecalciferol , the hormonally active form of vitamin D3, is a lipid-soluble compound that plays a significant role in clinical medicine due to its potent effects on calcium homeostasis and bone metabolism. Conclusions The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency is greater in certain clinical subpopulations, and the presence of associated characteristics should raise the index of suspicion for the practicing clinician with regard to conditions associated with vitamin D deficiency, such as osteoporosis and osteomalacia.

Keywords: cholecalciferol, vitamin d deficiency, ergocalciferol, nhanes, cdc. Introduction Vitamin D, a lipid-soluble vitamin, plays an essential role in maintaining skeletal integrity and function, electrolyte reabsorption, and immune system regulation among other health benefits. Materials and methods Data of participants were collected from NHANES, a program designed to study and assess the health and nutritional status of adults and children in the United States. Results The data of participants were collected from NHANES, a program designed to study and assess the health and nutritional status of adults and children in the United States.

Open in a separate window. Table 2 Risk factors for vitamin D deficiency. Table 3 Demographics and risk factors. Discussion Growing scientific evidence has implicated vitamin D deficiency in a multitude of chronic conditions, including type I diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and several common deadly cancers, among others [ 11 ].

Human Ethics Consent was obtained by all participants in this study. Animal Ethics Animal subjects: All authors have confirmed that this study did not involve animal subjects or tissue. References 1. Vitamin D: the "sunshine" vitamin. Nair R, Maseeh A.