Alert for the high prevalence of vitamin D de ficiency in adolescents in a large Brazilian sample

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and severe deficiency in children and adolescents, in a large Brazilian sample. Methodology: Results of 413,988 25(OH)D measurements in children and adolescents aged 0 to 18 years collected between 01/2014 and 10/2018 were obtained from the database of a Clinical Laboratory. In this population, 25 hydroxyvitamin D concentrations below 20 ng/mL are considered deficient, and below 12 ng/mL as severe deficiency. All measurements were performed by immunoassay and the results were distributed by gender, age group, seasonality, and latitude. Results: The mean of 25(OH)D levels was 29.2 ng/mL with a standard deviation of 9.2 ng/mL. Of the total samples, 0.8% had a concentration < 12 ng/mL, and 12.5% of the samples had a concentration < 20 ng/mL, with a higher prevalence in females. Children under 2 years of age had the lowest prevalence. The effects of latitude and seasonality were quite evident. In samples of female adolescents from the southern region in winter, 36% of vitamin D de ficiency and 5% of severe de ficiency were found. Conclusion: In this large number of measurements of 25(OH)D in children and adolescents, 12.5% had a deficiency and 0.8% had severe deficiency. A greater deficiency was observed among adolescents, especially females, which raises questions about the need for supplementation during this period of life. (c) 2024 Sociedade Brasileira de Pediatria. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).