Prevalência e fatores associados à deficiência e insuficiência de vitamina D entre adolescentes

Abstract

The hypovitaminosis D is a global proportioned public healthcare problem and one that affects individuals at all age groups. The adolescents, due to having a higher nutritional demand for an adequate growth and development, take part of a risk group that is still poorly studied. The north region of Minas Gerais state does not have canvassed data about this reality. This research hold the objective of evaluate the vitamin D levels of the adolescent population from the largest city of the north region of Minas Gerais state, analyzing the prevalence of deficiency and insufficiency concerning this group as well as identifying the associated factors. Three studies were developed from de research. The first one is an integrative revision about the associated factors around the deficiency and insufficiency of vitamin D in adolescents, which revealed a lack of specific studies regarding this age group as well as identifying variables like skin tone, age, female gender, low solar exposure, obesity and life habits aspects. The second one is a transversal and analytic with conglomerate samples of school adolescents and probabilistic allocation regarding schooling institution, sex and age, investigating the levels of vitamin D and associated factors from sociodemographic, anthropometric, life and diet habits as well as laboratorial dosage related to cardiovascular risk. The values of reference to define the levels of vitamin D were:  30 ng/mL to sufficiency, > 20 e < 30 ng/mL to insufficiency and ≤ 20 ng/mL to deficiency, also acknowledging any value inferior to 30 ng/mL as hypovitaminosis D. The associated factors were identified from Poisson regression, with robust estimator, with definition of prevalence ratio (PR) and respective confidence intervals of 95% (CI95%). 494 adolescents were evaluated, from which 298 (60,3%) were females, 373 (75,5%) black or brown and 411 (83,2%) with family income less or equal to 3 three minimal wages. From the total evaluated, 55,9% presented levels compatible with hypovitaminosis D, from which 13,6% with deficiency and 42,3% with insufficiency of the vitamin. The associated factors with vitamin D deficiency were age and presence of chronic respiratory disease and to hypovitaminosis D were age under 15 years and the elevation of the body mass index. The biochemical variables that indicate cardiovascular risk were not associated to the hypovitaminosis or the deficiency in the final model. For the third study an analysis was made specific to the female gender, following the same steps from the second study. In that, the only variable associated with hypovitaminosis D was the excess of weight. In conclusion, a high prevalence of hypovitaminosis D was recorded in the evaluated adolescents, confirming the data as compatible with the global literature, especially between the younger ones or with chronic respiratory disease and weight excess.