‘Sunshine vitamin deficiency’ – A myth or a fact?

As we live in a country with abundant sunshine the prevalence of this sunshine vitamin deficiency is around 70-100%. Minimum thirty minutes of UV B ray exposure causes the production of 600-1000IU of vitamin D in our body. The cut off values for 25-OH vitamin D deficiency is<20ng/ml. The exact cut off value for ‘deficiency' and ‘insufficiency' and its vitamin D therapy in India remains controversial. Despite the controversy the Clinicians often prescribe high dose vitamin D to treat the deficiency. Objectives of the study: To compare the vitamin D levels in apparently healthy office workers and manual laborers. Methods and Materials: This study was conducted on 50 apparently healthy office workers, working indoors from 9am to 5 pm and 50 apparently healthy manual labourers working outdoors, during the month of January and February in Mangalore, India. Results: The mean vitamin D levels were significantly higher (p <0.001) in manual labourers than the office workers (18.14 ± 6.98 and 11.16 ± 7.48). The vitamin D status among the office workers showed 2% having a normal vitamin D level(>30 ng/ml),12% having insufficiency(20 -30ng/ml), 28% having deficiency (<20ng/ml) and 58% having severe deficiency(<10ng/ml) similarly in the manual labourers 4% had normal vitamin D level,28% insufficiency,58% deficiency and 10% having severe deficiency. The hours of exposure and vitamin D concentration had significant correlation (p<0.001). Conclusion: Though there was a positive correlation between the vitamin D levels and the hours of exposure, even then only 4% of the manual labourers were having a normal vitamin D level, hence we conclude by saying that either the hours of exposure to sunlight should be more than 5hrs or a new reference range of vitamin D must be established in our Indian population as majority of our study population were asymptomatic, which could also curb the unnecessary intake of the vitamin D drug.