Vitamin D deficiency among healthy adolescents in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Juma Al Kaabi¹  Muna M Naqbi²  Shamma J Muhairi²  Aysha A Khouri²  Aaesha E Mehairi²  Syed M Shah³  Nico Nagelkerke³  Fatima A Maskari³  Ayesha S Al Dhaheri⁴ 

[1] United Arab Emirates University, College of Food & Agriculture, Department of Nutrition and Health, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates;United Arab Emirates University, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Department of Family Medicine, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates;United Arab Emirates University, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Institute of Public Health, PO Box 17666, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates;United Arab Emirates University, College of Medicine and Health, Department of Internal Medicine, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates;

关键词: Vitamin D deficiency;    Adolescents;    United Arab Emirates;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-13-33

 received in 2012-06-07, accepted in 2013-01-08,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundAlthough vitamin D deficiency has been studied in various adult populations, there are few data on the prevalence of this nutritional deficiency among healthy adolescents in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and to examine its correlates in adolescents aged 15 to 18 years.MethodsThis was a cross-sectional study in urban schools. Healthy adolescents (N=315) from a sample of 8 schools were randomly selected from the 142 schools in Al Ain, Abu Dhabi Emirate. Outcomes measured included serum concentrations of 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25OHD), plasma lipids, blood sugar, blood pressure and anthropometric data, nutrition and lifestyle variables.ResultsFourty-one participants (19.7%) were vitamin D deficient (serum 25OHD level ≤15 ng/mL [≤37.5 nmol/L]. Using a cutoff level of 25(OH) D of ≤20 ng/ml [≤50 nmol/l] 143 participants (45.4%) were vitamin D insufficient. Overall 65.1% of study participants were either vitamin D deficient or insufficient. The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency varied between boys (10%) and girls (28%). In a final multivariate model, serum 25(OH) D concentrations were inversely correlated with female gender, consumption of fast food per week, and body mass index and positively correlated with physical activity scores after adjustment for age.ConclusionsVitamin D deficiency and insufficiency were highly prevalent in adolescents, and more common in girls.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Muhairi et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.