7%, with significantly higher prevalence in females compared to males (85.5% vs. 64.7%; p < 0.001). On age stratification (45–54 years, 55–64 years, 65–74 years and ?75 years), this gender difference (females > males) was significant (p < 0.001) across all the above-mentioned age groups. Females in the age group of 75 years and above had the highest prevalence (94.3%) of low vitamin D. The overall prevalence of vitamin D deficiency (<20 ng/ml) in our rural cohort was 39.1%, with significantly higher prevalence in females compared to males (47.8% vs. 29.2%; p < 0.001). The same trend was observed with statistical significance across all age groups: 45–54, 55–64, 65–74, and ?75 years. The highest prevalence of vitamin D deficiency (59.6%) was seen in females in the age group of 75 years and above (Profile dos).
Percentages of the study population having (A) Low Vitamin D (<30 ng/ml) and Vitamin D deficiency (<20 ng/ml) (B) Vitamin B12 deficiency and (C) Folic acid deficiency is graphically represented.
The overall prevalence of vitamin B12 deficiency (<200 pg/ml) in our rural subjects was 42.3%. There was no significant difference in prevalence between males and females (41.8% vs. 42.7%). However, among females, significantly higher prevalence was observed in the age group of 45–54 years (p = 0.014) There was no significant difference between age groups among males (Figure 2).
The overall prevalence of folic acid deficiency (<3 ng/ml) in our rural cohort was 11.1% There was significantly (p < 0.001) higher prevalence in males (13.9%) compared to females (8.6%). Among the different age groups, we found that subjects aged 75 years and above had the highest prevalence (19.9%, p < 0.001). In this oldest age group, females had a slightly higher prevalence compared to males (21.8% vs. 18.5%), though this difference was not statistically significant (Figure 2).
Conversation
Our study aimed at determining the burden of vitamin D, vitamin B12 and folic acid deficiencies in an aging (?45 years), rural community from the state of Karnataka in southern India. Our results revealed that the overall prevalence of low vitamin D (<30 ng/ml), vitamin D deficiency (<20 ng/ml), vitamin B12 deficiency (<200 pg/ml) and folic acid deficiency (<3 ng/ml) were 75.7%, 39.1%, 42.3%, and 11.1%, respectively. These results imply that this rural community had an overall higher burden of inadequate vitamins D and B12, with relatively low burden of folic acid deficiency.
The definition of adequate levels of vitamin D has undergone much debate in the recent past, with recommendations varying between different expert advisory bodies. For example, the US National Academy of Medicine (formerly Institute of getiton Medicine) (19) recommends levels of 20 ng/ml and above as adequate, whereas the US Endocrine Society (20) and International Osteoporosis Foundation (21) recommendations classify levels of 20–29 ng/ml as “insufficient” and <20 ng/ml as “deficient.” In our study, we used two cut-off levels to categorize abnormal levels: <30 ng/ml was categorized as low vitamin D (to include both insufficiency and deficiency) and <20 ng/ml was categorized as vitamin D deficiency.
Figure 2
Relatively reduced education towards the vitamin D deficiency was basically accomplished from inside the warm nations than the temperate nations (22). More over, in the background of scarce information about vitamin D position out-of Indians in rural teams, all of our discovering that over around three-fourths with the outlying Indian people got low supplement D is very in regards to the. This happens up against the traditional evaluate that people from tropical countries, and this discovered sunrays throughout every season, are likely to features enough levels of nutritional D. Possible things about the newest particularly large frequency inside cohort is older inhabitants with minimal outside passion, expanding adaptation and you can entry to machines to own agricultural functions (ergo, decreasing manual work in the wild areas) and poor slimming down source of supplement D, because most folks have no otherwise limited consumption out of beef circumstances and milk isn’t equally fortified nationwide.