Irfan Tramboo
Srinagar, Apr 26: There is a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among school going children in Jammu falling in the age group of 6-12 years, with girls projecting severe deficiency in comparison to the boys, reveals a study while terming the results as ‘alarming’.
The study has been conducted by the Department of Biochemistry, Govt Medical College (GMC), Jammu whereby the blood samples of 104 school going children attending SMGS Hospital Jammu were taken for screening.
The study found that 91 children out of the sample, which is 87.5 per cent, were found to be having insufficient vitamin D levels in their blood, while as 63 children out of the sample, which is 60 percent showed severe deficiency with vitamin D levels below 20ngm/dl.
Co-authored by Dr Harleen Kaur and Dr Amarjeet Singh Bhatia of GMC Jammu, the study titled ‘High prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in school children in Jammu: a whistle blower’ was conducted between June, 2018 and December 2018.
“A total of 104 school going children were screened for vitamin D levels in their blood and 91 (87.5%) of these children were found to have insufficient levels of vitamin D (less than 30mg/dl), whereas 63 (60.5%) children had vitamin D levels below 20ngm/ml, the mean level was 10.8ngm/ml, 28 (26.9%) were having vitamin D level between 20-30ngm/ml,” the results of the study state.
The Vitamin D deficiency has been witnessed high in girls as compared to boys who were the part of the sample for the study. 67 per cent of girls out of the sample were having severe having severe deficiency of Vitamin D-the percentage which has been recorded as 52 per cent in boys.
“Out of 56 girls screened, 38 (67.8%) were severely deficient having vitamin D levels below 20ngm/dl, further 12 (21.4%) and 06 (10.7%) out of these 56 school girls had levels between 20 to 30ngm/dl and above 30ngm/dl respectively. The lowest values of vitamin D were 5.9ngm/ml in boys and 2.9ngm/ml in girls,” it said.
“It has been happening due to absence of physical activities among kids, and the absence of it can lead to various other associated diseases as the deficiency of the vitamin D can directly affect the immune system,” Dr Amarjeet Singh Bhatia, corresponding author of the study and Head of the Department Biochemistry, GMC Jammu told Excelsior.
The study said that only 13 out of 104 (12.5%) of the school going children were having levels above 30ngm/ml. Amongst 104 school going children screened, 48 were boys and 56 were girls.
“Out of 48 boys, 25 (52%) were having severe deficiency with levels below 20ngm/ml, whereas 16 (33.3%) and 07 (14.5%) school children had blood levels between 20-30ngm/ml and above 30ngm/ml respectively,” it added.
While terming the results as alarming and stating that the trend may be representing something serious, the researchers have concluded: “It is highly suspected that vitamin D deficiency may represent other underlying public health problem in Jammu and Kashmir that should be explored.”
“The results of our study revealing prevalence of alarming level of vitamin D deficiency in school going children should be taken as a whistle blower for the health policy makers of the region,” they said.
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