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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | India's first vitamin D rulebook out -GS Mudur

India's first vitamin D rulebook out -GS Mudur

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published Published on Nov 5, 2015   modified Modified on Nov 5, 2015
-The Telegraph

New Delhi: A medical panel has produced India's first-ever rule book to tackle widespread vitamin D deficiency that prescribes regular, possibly lifelong, doses to even healthy adults but warns that doctors may be over-testing and over-prescribing the drug.

An expert group set by the Endocrine Society of India, an association of specialists, has prescribed vitamin D to healthy adults, adolescents, infants and all pregnant women after 12 weeks of gestation in its recommendations set to be submitted to the Union health ministry.

Vitamin D, an essential nutrient needed by the body to absorb calcium and for bone health, is synthesised in the skin on exposure to sunlight. Although some fish and egg yolk contain vitamin D, experts have long been concerned that typical Indian meals do not provide the levels required.

The expert group, citing concerns that lifestyles and air pollution might be limiting sunlight exposure to Indians, has also called on government authorities to encourage fortification of edible oil or milk with vitamin D, a practice adopted decades ago by Western countries.

"We're in a peculiar situation - we have abundant sunlight, but we also have an abundance of evidence for vitamin D deficiency from across the country," Ambrish Mithal, a senior endocrinologist in New Delhi and one of the lead authors of the rule book, told The Telegraph.

Over the past 15 years, endocrinologists across India have documented vitamin D deficiency prevalence, ranging from 70 per cent to 98 per cent of healthy adults sampled in various cities. A study of vitamin D in pregnant women in Delhi, Lucknow and Mumbai found deficiency levels ranging from 84 per cent to 93 per cent.

While the expert group has recommended sun exposure to 15 to 30 per cent of the body surface during summer between 11am and 3pm, a few studies in India have failed to demonstrate significant benefits from sun exposure.

"This was a disappointing result - the increase after exposure to sunlight did not reach the levels we would expect. One possible factor is air pollution," Mithal said. Doctors also believe changing work and lifestyles have contributed to the high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency.

"Most people don't have time to expose themselves to sunlight," said Usha Sriram, an endocrinologist in Chennai and another member of the panel. "We need sustained supplementation, without replenishment, vitamin D levels can fall within months," Sriram said.

Given the high prevalence of the deficiency, the group has recommended that even healthy adults with no symptoms should take 1,000 to 2,000 standard international units (IU) of vitamin D daily, either daily, weekly, or in monthly doses, depending on convenience.

The panel has also recommended 400 IU a day of vitamin D supplementation to all infants and a supplementation of 600 to 1,000 units of vitamin D beyond infancy to all children with limited sunlight exposure because of lifestyle, disability, or other factors. The panel has fixed a dose of 1,000 units a day for all adolescents.

"In adolescents, maintaining adequate levels of vitamin D is specially important because bone mass accumulates only until about the late teens," said Sriram.

The recommendations also call for vitamin D supplementation to all women planning conception and for pregnant women after 12 weeks of gestation.

However, the doctors have recommended against routine testing of healthy persons. Some endocrinologists have been concerned that widespread awareness among physicians about vitamin D deficiency has led to expensive tests that do not really benefit patients.

There is also evidence of over-prescription.

A study published earlier this year in the journal Clinical Endocrinology documented 16 patients from a single hospital in India with vitamin D toxicity brought about by excessive doses prescribed by physicians over a two-year period.

The endocrinologists have said fortification should be viewed as the long-term solution. Edible vegetable oil, they have recommended, would be a possible vehicle to deliver vitamin D. Vegetable oil has a near 99 per cent penetration into households across the country.

Several studies from India and other countries over the past decade have associated vitamin D deficiency with a number of conditions - ranging from infections to diabetes to heart disorders.

However, endocrinologists say the evidence for actual benefits of vitamin D in many disorders is still weak.

"These recommendations are also intended to guide physicians against the over-prescription of vitamin D," Nikhil Tandon, professor of endocrinology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, the second lead author of the rulebook.

"We have adequate data today to support the use of vitamin D mainly in musculo-skeletal disorders and in some patients with kidney or liver conditions," Tandon told this newspaper. "In most other disorders, the evidence to justify its use is still weak."

The Telegraph, 5 November, 2015, http://www.telegraphindia.com/1151105/jsp/nation/story_51540.jsp#.Vjsl3ys1t_k


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