Vitamin D Deficiency in Medical Patients at a Teaching Hospital in North India.

BACKGROUND While vitamin D is critical for calcium homeostasis, current literature also highlight role of vitamin D deficiency (VDD) in diseases other than the metabolic bone disorders. Only few studies on role of vitamin D in tuberculosis have been done in Asian populations. There is paucity of literature addressing this issue in Indian population as well. AIM We planned to study prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in patients with tuberculosis and to compare it with patients who had non-tuberculosis medical illnesses and healthy individuals with the hypothesis that patients with tuberculosis might have higher prevalence of hypovitaminosis D. METHODS In this descriptive cross-sectional study, there were three groups of study participants. Group 1 consisted of newly diagnosed sputum-positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients of either sex aged 18-60 years. Group 2 comprised of age and sex matched hospitalized patients of other medical illnesses. In group 3 healthy controls were recruited from the general population amongst patient's attendants and hospital staff with the same socio-economic status and ethnic background as that of the patients.Their routine hematological and biochemical parameters along with vitamin D status was assessed. RESULTS Mean vitamin D levels were significantly low (11.2 ± 6.5 ng/ml) and prevalence of hypovitaminosis D was highest (92%) in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis than other groups. Sputum smear conversion time revealed a significant negative correlation with vitamin D levels (Spearman's p coefficient -0.24, P = 0.02). CONCLUSION vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent among hospitalized patients especially patients with pulmonary tuberculosis as compared to patients with other illnesses and healthy individuals. Hypovitaminosis D might be linked to severity of the tuberculosis and also response to treatment.