TREND SHIFT IN VITAMIN-D DEFICIENCY AND SUPPLEMENTS IN LAST DECADE IN INDIA

Vitamin-D deficiency has been noted very frequent nutritional deprivation in India as well as globally.[1] Vitamin-D synthesized in our body via skin and liver following sunshine exposure. Foods containing vitamin d are also natural source while exogenous supplementation is popular in current scenario. 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) is predominant metabolite of vitamin-D and is recorded as vigorous and reliable marker of vitamin D status.[2,3] Serum vitamin-D level in form of 25-OH vitamin d is easily available in pathological labs over two decades. Plenty of studies are published over 2 decades measuring 25(OH) vitamin d level and estimating prevalence of vitamin d deficiency in India.[4-13] Most of the studies are hospital based and few are from community. Vitamin-D deficiency is widely reported from every region of India despite having sunlight throughout the year. It could be attributed to several factors like darkening of skin, increased pigmentation and covered clothing habits in few communities and lack of sufficient dietary intake of vitamin-D. After availability of serum vitamin-D assay, it become popular among health care providers to check serum levels and supplementation of vitamin-D in the form of injections, capsules and syrup forms. It is noted that vitamin-D deficiency trend is improving in studies from from the USA (2007–2017), Ireland (1993–2013), Norway (1994–2008), and Canada (over 10 years of follow‑up).[14-17] Seasonal variability of serum vitamin-D should also be addressed because it also affects overall vitamin-D level as well as health status of person. Few of the studies also drawn attention towards hypervitaminosis-D. and this is also reported increasingly over last decade.