Vitamin
D Predicament in Obese Children and Adolescents
May Fouad Nassar (1) and Mohamed Farouk
Allam (2)*
1. Department of Pediatric, Faculty of
Medicine, Ain Shams University, Egypt.
2. Department of Family Medicine, Faculty
of Medicine, Ain Shams University, Egypt.
Biomedical Journal of Scientific &
Technical Research 2020;25(1):18732-4.
DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2020.25.004130
Mini
Review
ABSTRACT
Vitamin D levels are significantly lower in
obese children and adolescents compared to non-obese matching peers. While
evaluating the number of obese and non-obese cases who improved upon vitamin D
supplement, obesity was found to pose a risk for not receiving benefit from the
vitamin D supplementation. Vitamin D given to these vulnerable groups results
in a significantly attenuated increase in 25(OH)D levels with supplementation.
However, the proper dose and duration cannot be deduced because several of the
studies reported a portion of vitamin D deficient obese children and
adolescents at the end of their supplementation period. Screening for vitamin D
levels is thus recommended since obese children and adolescents are more prone
to be deficient. Additionally, the dose and duration of vitamin D
supplementation or treatment should follow the guidelines. Finally, it is
prudent to hypothesize that if the published studies had performed simultaneous
weight adjustment strategies more of the enrolled obese participants would have
reached vitamin D sufficiency by the end of the supplementation trial coupled
with the favorable changes in their BMI.
Keywords: Adolescents; Supplementation;
Vitamin D; Obesity; Dose
