High Prevalence of Vitamin D Deficiency in Women Presenting to Rheumatology Clinic in North of Iran: An Inverse Relation with Age

Abstract

Background: Vitamin D deficiency is linked to bone mass attainment during adolescence period and to the development or progression of several rheumatic diseases that commonly appears in young females. There is a gap in the existing literature pertaining to vitamin D levels across the life-stages. This study was designed to investigate the status of serum vitamin D according to age in women presnting to rheumatology clinic in north of Iran. Methods: A total of 843 women were consecutively entered to study. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OHD) was measured by ELISA method and concentratins <20 ng/ml was considered as deficiency. Mean 25-OHD and proportions of 25-OHD deficiency was compared according to decades of age and between premenopausal (<50) and postmenpausal (≥ 50 years) women using Mann-Whitney and chi-square tests. Spearman’s test was used for correlation. Results: The median age was 50 (range 15-91) years. Overall 52.8% had 25-OHD deficiency and 24.6% had 25-OHD<10 ng/ml. Mean 25-OHD and proportion of deficiency diferred significantly across various decades of age (P=0.0001 for both).Mean 25-OHD positively correlated to age (r=0.300 P=0.0001) and proportion of 25-OHD deficiency inversely correlated with age (P=0.0001). Mean 25-OHD was lower and proportion of 25-OHD deficiency was higher in premenopausal versus postmenopausal women (P=0.001 for both). Conclusion: These findings indicate an inversly agerelated high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency particularly in premenopausal women presenting to rheumatology clinic. Regarding a link between vitamin D deficiency and development of several rheumatic diseases as well as bone mass impairment these findings suggest early recognition of vitamin D deficiency in young women. *Corresponding author: BehzadHeidari, Department of medicine, Rouhani hospital, Babol University of medical sciences, Babol, Iran, E-mail: heidaribeh@yahoo.com Received April 04, 2013; Accepted May 27, 2013; Published May 29, 2013 Citation: Heidari B, Heidari P, Tilaki KH (2013) High Prevalence of Vitamin D Deficiency in Women Presenting to Rheumatology Clinic in North of Iran: An Inverse Relation with Age. J Women’s Health Care 2: 123. doi:10.4172/21670420.1000123 Copyright: © 2013 Heidari B, et al. 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.