Brief observation
Vitamin D insufficiency among free-living healthy young adults

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Subjects and methods

We recruited hospital employees, attending physicians, house staff physicians, medical students, and hospital visitors during our vitamin D awareness screening program at Boston University Medical Center during March and April, 1999 (end of winter) and September and October 1999 (end of summer). Subjects were excluded if they had a history of intestinal malabsorption. Subjects were divided into four age groups: 18 to 29 years, 30 to 39 years, 40 to 49 years, and ≥50 years. Study participants

Baseline characteristics

One hundred sixty-five subjects were enrolled at the end of winter and 142 subjects were enrolled at the end of summer, of whom 61% were women (n = 186) and 60% were white (n = 185).

Dietary history

Most subjects drank milk: 64% (n = 91) in the end-of-summer group and 58% (n = 96) in the end-of-winter group. An average of 1.6 ± 1.0 glasses of milk was drunk per day. There was no statistical difference between the age groups in the percentage of subjects who drank milk. In addition, 40% (n = 123) of subjects

Discussion

The majority of elderly patients in the United States and Europe have vitamin D insufficiency 13, 14, 15. Little is known about the prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency in healthy young adults. We observed that 36% of young adults aged 18 to 29 years had vitamin D deficiency at the end of winter. They had 20% lower 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels than in the oldest group during this period and demonstrated the most seasonal variation in 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels.

Dietary intake of milk was not

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank Jeffrey Mathieu and Zhiren Lu for performing some of the 25-hydroxyvitamin D assays and John Flannagan for his help in recruiting some of the subjects.

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This work was supported by NIH MO1RR00053.

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