Vitamin D Deficiency Prevalence and Correlates in Patients Attending the Cardiology Clinic in a Tertiary Centre in Southern Nigeria

Abstract

<i>Background:</i> Vitamin D is an important vitamin that helps in many bodily functions. Its deficiency has been found to play a role in cardiovascular diseases like hypertension, heart failure, ischemic heart disease etc. 1α, 25-dihydroxyvitamin D, the active metabolite of vitamin D, binds major receptors found in all the major cardiovascular cells including arteries and cardiomyocytes to exert its protective effects. Darker skinned individuals have been found to be more vitamin D deficient than their Caucasian counterparts. This study sought to determine the prevalence and correlates of vitamin insufficiency and deficiency among patients attending the cardiology clinic in a major referral centre in southern, Nigeria. <i>Methods: </i>This is a descriptive cross-sectional study of a total of 192 study participants attending the cardiology out-patient clinic of the university. Informed consent was sort, and a questionnaire administered to all recruited patients and blood drawn for vitamin D assay. <i>Results: </i>There were more female study participants 55.7% as compared with their male counterparts at 44.3%. Hypertension (62.0%) as well as diabetes (33.3%) were the most common co-morbidity in the participants. Vitamin D deficiency was found in 7.8% of the study participants and 24.5% of all participants had below normal serum Vitamin D concentration i.e. <30ng/ml. A statistically significant association was noticed between the presence of comorbidities and vitamin D deficiency (F=65.87; p=0.03). Inadequate consumption of red meat was also found to be associated with insufficient and deficient serum vitamin D level (P=0.009). <i>Conclusion: </i>Vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency was found to be prevalent in patients attending the cariology out-patient clinic and linked with the presence of hypertension, hypertensive heart disease and diabetes mellitus. The need for dietary supplementation of Vitamin D should be of public health importance in not only paediatric population and maternal health, but the general adult population as well.