Vitamin D test results in a public hospital in mid-January
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Sukru Ozgur Aydin
Antalya is a city in the south coast of Anatolia, famous for its long beaches and sunny sky. However, our natives seem to have no privilege of the endemic deficiency of vitamin D, a molecule which human body is capable of producing via internal chemical sources and sun light. A retrospective analysis showed that our laboratory gave 1438 vitamin D test results requested by the doctors of our hospital between 14 and 21 January in 2019. Only 80 results were higher than the accepted lower normal range (30 ng/mL) and 2 of them were above the toxic level; all of which were follow-up patients using vitamin D supplements.
Frequently asked questions about the use of vitamin D were answered in another paper [1]. After all written and discussed: it is understood that vitamin D normal values are still a matter of debate. Particularly in our hospital, vitamin D requests in mid-January served nothing but a confirmation that every patient with a pre-diagnosis of Vitamin D deficiency was vitamin D deficient. In other words, our results once again defined an endemic of hypovitaminosis D.
25-OH vitamin D test is expensive and vitamin D test requests are growing out of control. Besides laboratory expenses, studies showed that in 2012, 2,280,626 boxes of vitamin D were sold in our country, which rose to 8,376,319 in the first 8 months of 2016 [1], prompting the public misunderstanding that Vitamin D is a cure for every existing disease. According to the same paper, less than 1/10 of the drugs used were prescribed. Finally (and of great concern), there are papers interpreting levels above 50 ng/mL as ‘possibly harmful’ [2, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db59.pdf]!
References
1. Yeşiltepe Mutlu G, Hatun Ş. Use of vitamin D in children and adults: frequently asked questions. J Clin Res Pediatr Endocrinol 2018;10:301–6.10.4274/jcrpe.0012Search in Google Scholar PubMed PubMed Central
2. Institute of Medicine. Dietary reference intakes for calcium and vitamin D. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2010.Search in Google Scholar
©2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Review Article
- Measurement uncertainty in laboratory medicine: the bridge between medical and industrial metrology
- Short Communication
- Investigation of beta globin gene mutations in Syrian refugee patients with thalassemia major
- Research Articles
- A practical ID-LC-MS/MS method for the most commonly analyzed steroid hormones in clinical laboratories
- Distribution of drug-metabolizing enzymes coding genes CYP2D6, CYP3A4, CYP3A5 alleles in a group of healthy Turkish population
- Molecular detection of Bacillus anthracis: evaluation of the efficiency of DNA extraction and a novel dry PCR
- Serum and cord blood-methylated arginine levels in gestational diabetic subjects
- Association of oxidative stress marker ischemia modified albumin and polycystic ovary syndrome in adolescent and young girls
- Influence of pegylated interferon and ribavirin on insulin resistance and metabolic factors in chronic hepatitis C
- Importance of biochemical parameters in order to predict clinical severity in patients diagnosed with Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever
- Evaluation of plasma VEGF and sVEGFR-1 levels in patients with diabetes mellitus receiving insulin treatment
- The effect of Ramadan fasting on renal functions in patients with chronic kidney disease
- Effect of food azo-dye tartrazine on physiological functions of pancreas and glucose homeostasis
- Ameliorating oxidative stress and inflammation by Hesperidin and vitamin E in doxorubicin induced cardiomyopathy
- Alteration in cholinesterases, γ-aminobutyric acid and serotonin level with respect to thiamine deficiency in Swiss mice
- Case Report
- Discordant troponin I value in a young woman: a case report with review of literature
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- Vitamin D test results in a public hospital in mid-January
