EC Pulmonology and Respiratory Medicine

Background: The relationship between the vitamin D level and recurrent wheezing is not clear. There are some studies showed the relationship between recurrent wheezing and vitamin D level. Vitamin D plays a role in development of immune system and lung in the fetus. Vitamin D receptors (VDR) have been found in fetal type II alveolar pneumocytes of rats, and may have the role in lung development, pneumocyte differentiation and surfactant production. It is said that there are some reported data that link between Vitamin D and wheezing episode. The prevalence of asthma is increasing day by day due to vitamin D deficiency though asthma is a multifactorial disease. It may be useful to measure the levels of 25 (OH) vitamin D of the pre-school children with or without recurrent wheezing.

Objective: To observe association between vitamin D status and recurrent wheezing in preschool children.

Methods: Thirty-Seven preschool children with recurrent wheezing response to salbutamol and thirty-seven healthy, similar aged children without any history of acute or chronic illness were included in the study. The clinical features of children were recorded and serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH) D] levels were measured. The data was analyzed to find out an association between the serum levels of vitamin D and recurrent wheezing.

Results: The mean value of 25 (OH) D vitamin levels were 34.4 ± 10.1 ng/ml and 26.2 ± 6.5 ng/ml for the control and case group respectively. 16.22% of subjects with recurrent wheezing had deficient vitamin D level (< 20 ng/ ml) and 25.4% had vitamin D levels below < 20 ng/ml in the control group. Vitamin D status of the study participants showed that among the cases, 20 (54%) had insufficiency and 11 (30%) had normal vitamin level while among the controls, 13 (35%) had insufficiency and 22 (59%) had normal vitamin D level. This was statistical significance between the two groups.

A strong association between the low serum Vitamin D levels and the recurrent wheeze (p = 0.001) was found. The optimal cut-off value for Vitamin D was found to be 28.8 ng/mL.

Conclusion: Low serum 25(OH) D levels are strongly associated with recurrent wheezing in preschool children. So, it is needed to do vitamin D level of all recurrent wheezing with preschool children.

 Keywords: Serum Vitamin D Level; Wheezing; Preschool Children

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