ESPE Abstracts

Background: Vitamin D deficiency is now a critical issue due to its high prevalence and side effects.

Objective and hypotheses:: We assessed the serum vitamin D status of obese and non-obese children and comparing their therapeutic response to identical oral vitamin D consumption in Iran.

Method: This study was performed in children aged 2–14 years at Children Medical Center of Tehran in Iran. At first, the serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D level was measured in 45 obese and 45 non-obese children. Afterward, all the children with low serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D were treated by 50 000 IU of vitamin D3 as a pearl once a week for 6 weeks. Meanwhile, the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency before and after treatment was determined.

Results: The study revealed that 95.6% of obese and 66.6% of non-obese children were suffering either vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency (P<0.001). After oral treatment of 74 cases, measuring of the vitamin D level illustrates promising improvement for the latter group (decreased from 66.6 to 3.3%) while 55.8% of the obese group are still suffering low vitamin D level (P<0.001).

Conclusion: This study demonstrates a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among Iranian children, particularly the obese ones. Moreover, low therapeutic response in the obese group was witnessed.