Prevalence of Vitamin D Deficiency among Healthy School Children in Jaipur District, Rajasthan, India

Abstract

Vitamin D deficiency is one of the common nutritional deficiency and it exists in both childhood and adult life. The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency is 50-90 % in the Indian subcontinent. This was a cross sectional study which includes 96 apparently healthy school going children (50 Male & 46 Female) of age 5 to 10 years. We found that 33.33% (15 Male &17 Female) had vitamin D levels {25(OH) D} less than 25 nmol/L, 33.33 %( 14Male & 18 Female) had between 25- 50 nmol/L, 20.83% (14 Male & 6 Female) between 50- 75 nmol/L and 12.50% (7 Male & 5 Female) had more than 75nmol/L. Our data indicate that 87.50% children (86% male and 89.13% female) of Jaipur region have sub optimal and deficient vitamin D levels.