Bone Abstracts

Objectives: This cross-sectional study was done in order to assess the prevalence and determinants of vitamin D deficiency in children taking in account the following parameters: children’s age, season, geographic region and ethnicity.

Methods: A cross-sectional prospective study was conducted in Israeli children aged 0–18 from Meuhedet Health Services during the year of 2016 in primary care pediatric clinics throughout all different geographic areas in Israel. Blood samples were obtained from 28,376 patients for serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25-OHD] level. Vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency were defined as 25-OHD < 20 ng/ml and <30 ng/ml, respectively.

Results: Vitamin D deficiency was more prevalent in children between 14 and 18 years than in the group of 0–2 years (61.32% and 18.20% respectively, P < 0.001) and was directly related to the increase of age. Vitamin D deficiency was more common in winter (57.59%) than in summer (35.34%).

Conclusions: A high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency was found in teenagers in our study, mainly in the group of 14–18 years old and in the winter. These findings are surprising as Israel is a sunny country. Lifestyle and indoors activities may play an important role as associated factors to the Vitamin D deficiency.

Disclosure: The authors declared no competing interests.