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25-Hydroxyvitamin D levels of children are inversely related to adiposity assessed by body mass index

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Abstract

Vitamin D deficiency is associated with wide range of pathologies. Some evidences have shown that low vitamin D circulating levels in children and adolescent are related to fat mass and obesity. The objectives of the present study were to characterize vitamin D status in children and adolescents and to determine if serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) concentration is related to adiposity assessed by body mass index (BMI). Serum 25(OH)D levels were measured by LIAISON method in 471 children and adolescents (2 to 18 years age) and analyzed according to gender, pubertal period, age, and BMI. An overall prevalence of 25(OH)D insufficiency and deficiency was present in the 67.1%. Lower 25(OH)D levels were found in females (25.56 ± 14.03 vs 29.71 ± 17.10 ng ml−1; P = 0.004) and pubertal children (25.52 ± 13.97 vs 29.21 ± 16.83 ng ml−1; P = 0.011). In addition, an inverse relation of BMI and age on 25(OH)D concentrations was observed in children. In conclusion, low vitamin D status was highly prevalent among children and adolescents. Of note, a non-lineal regression model showed that 39.6% of vitamin D levels variability was explained by BMI. These results indicate that adiposity assessed by BMI impacts vitamin D status.

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Abbreviations

BMI:

Body mass index

Edf:

Effective degrees of freedom

GAMs:

Generalized additive models

25(OH)D:

25-Hydroxyvitamin D

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Acknowledgements

This research has been funded by Instituto de Salud Carlos III (PI11/02059); Ministerio de Sanidad y Política Social (2010-02-3061-21). Grant MTM2011-23204 (FEDER support included) of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and by grant 10PXIB300068PR from the Galician Regional Authority (Xunta de Galicia).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unit of Investigation in Nutrition, Growth and Human Development of Galicia, Pediatric Department (USC), Complexo Hospitalario Universitario de Santiago (IDIS/SERGAS), Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    Silvia Barja-Fernández, Rocío Vazquez, Juan Bedoya & Rosaura Leis

  2. Endocrine Physiopathology Group, Complexo Hospitalario Universitario de Santiago (IDIS/SERGAS), Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    Silvia Barja-Fernández & Luisa M. Seoane

  3. CIBER Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y Nutrición, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    Silvia Barja-Fernández, Luisa M. Seoane & Rosaura Leis

  4. Deparment of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology II, Institute of Nutrition and Food Technology, Center for Biomedical Research (UGR), Granada, Spain

    Concepción M. Aguilera, Josune Olza & Ángel Gil

  5. Department of Statistics and Operations Research, University of Vigo, Vigo, Spain

    Isabel Martínez-Silva

  6. Pediatric Research and Metabolism Unit, Reina Sofia University Hospital (IMIBIC), Córdoba, Spain

    Mercedes Gil-Campos

  7. Unit of Biostatistics, Department of Statistic and Operations Research, University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    Carmen Cadarso-Suárez

Authors
  1. Silvia Barja-Fernández
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  2. Concepción M. Aguilera
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  3. Isabel Martínez-Silva
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  4. Rocío Vazquez
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  5. Mercedes Gil-Campos
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  6. Josune Olza
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  7. Juan Bedoya
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  8. Carmen Cadarso-Suárez
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  9. Ángel Gil
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  10. Luisa M. Seoane
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  11. Rosaura Leis
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Contributions

The authors’ contributions were as follows: RL, RV, LMS, SB-F, IM-S, CMA, JO, C C-S, A G, and RT conceived and carried out experiments; RL, RV, CC-S, RT, LMS, MGC, AG, and RT conceived experiments and analyzed data; RL, RV, SB-F, IM-S, and MG-C carried out experiments. All authors were involved in writing the paper and had final approval of the submitted and published versions.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rosaura Leis.

Ethics declarations

Ethical statement

This study was conducted according to the guidelines laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki and all procedures were approved by the Central Ethics and Research Committee of Galicia Autonomous Community. The assent of all children included in this study and the informed permission of their parents were obtained.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

This article forms part of a special issue of the Journal of Physiology and Biochemistry entitled “Impact of lifestyles patterns on human health: Integrated approach from the child to the elderly”

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Barja-Fernández, S., Aguilera, C.M., Martínez-Silva, I. et al. 25-Hydroxyvitamin D levels of children are inversely related to adiposity assessed by body mass index. J Physiol Biochem 74, 111–118 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13105-017-0581-1

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