MedWire News: Children with newly diagnosed inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have significantly lower vitamin D levels than those without the condition, show study results.
However, vitamin D levels did not correlate with bone mineral density (BMD) z-scores or disease activity, say the researchers.
Wael El-Matary (Alderhey Children's NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool, UK) and colleagues recruited 60 children with newly diagnosed IBD, 39 with Crohn's disease (CD), aged a mean of 12.2 years, and 21 with ulcerative colitis (UC), aged a mean of 12.4 years. For comparison purposes, 56 age- and gender-matched controls were also enrolled.
The team found that children with CD and UC had significantly lower levels of 25-hydroxy vitamin D than controls, at 66.7 and 56.9 versus 81.7 nmol/l, respectively. Although the levels were lower in children with UC than those with CD, the difference between the two groups was not statistically significant.
BMD z-scores, calculated from dual energy absorptiometry measurements of lumbar spine, did not significantly correlate with vitamin D concentration in either CD or UC patients. However, CD patients had a significantly lower score than UC patients, at -1.4 versus -0.3.
The researchers say this agrees with the results from a study in adults that showed lower BMD in CD than UC patients.
As reported in the journal Digestive Disease and Sciences, El-Matary et al also assessed whether disease severity was associated with level of vitamin D in the CD and UC patients, but this was not found to be the case. There was also no link found between duration of symptoms before diagnosis and any of the study outcomes.
"The lack of correlation between vitamin D levels and BMD z scores supports the existing evidence against routine supplementation of IBD patients with vitamin D when BMD z scores are low," write the authors.
They conclude: "Larger prospective controlled studies are needed to confirm the results of our study."
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