Aim: Highlighting some health consequences of hypovitaminosis D on adult Egyptian population.
Methods: Fifty-five apparently healthy volunteers aged from 20 to 40 years were involved in the study and by history and physical examination 40 of them had mild clinical manifestation of negligible medical importance that affect the quality of their life without interfering with their daily activity. All volunteers were subjected to vitamin D and calcium dietary intake history, sun exposure assessment, body mass index (BMI), serum vitamin D and calcium profile, bone mineral density measured by Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), psychometric evaluation by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) score and physical activity evaluation by the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ).
Results: About 73% of our subjects had hypovitaminosis D (61.8% insufficient and 10.9% deficient). The prevalence was more in the female gender (OR 4.5; p≤ 0.05), older subjects (31-40) age group (OR 4.4; p≤ 0.05), with poor sun exposure (OR 7.8; p≤ 0.05), and low vitamin D and calcium dietary intake (OR 4.6; p≤0.05). Vitamin D deficient group showed the higher prevalence of obesity (45.5%). Osteopenia was detected in seven subjects (14.3%) who had low vitamin D levels. The vitamin D status had a negative correlation (r=-0.653; p=