![Sample our Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing & Allied Health journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5944/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Medicine-Dentistry-Nursing-Allied-Health.jpg"})
Abstract
Background. The prevalence of multimorbidity (≥ 1 disease within an individual) is rapidly increasing. So far, studies on the relationship between vitamin D and morbidity are mainly focusing on effects on single disease domains only, while vitamin D biology is associated with several diseases throughout the human body.
Methods. We studied 8,726 participants from the LifeLines Cohort Study (a cross-sectional, population-based cohort study) and used the self-developed composite morbidity score to study the association between vitamin D levels and multimorbidity.
Results. Study participants (mean age 45 ± 13 years, 73% females) had a mean plasma vitamin D level of 59 ± 22 nmol/L. In participants aged between 50 and 60 years, 58% had ≥ 2 affected disease domains, while morbidity score increased with age (70–80 years: 82% morbidity score > 1; > 80 years: 89% morbidity score > 1). Each incremental reduction by 1 standard deviation (SD) of vitamin D level was associated with an 8% higher morbidity score (full model OR 0.92, 95% CI 0.88–0.97, P = 0.001). Participants with vitamin D levels < 25 nmol/L were at highest risk for increasing morbidity prevalence (versus > 80 nmol/L, OR 1.34, 95% CI 1.07–1.67, P = 0.01).
Conclusions. Low levels of vitamin D are associated with higher prevalence of multimorbidity, especially in participants with vitamin D levels < 25 nmol/L. Collectively, our results favor a general, rather than an organ-specific, approach when assessing the impact of vitamin D deficiency.
Funding: This work was supported by the Netherlands Heart Foundation (grant 2007T046) and the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme program of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO VENI, grant 916.10.117), and the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme program of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO VIDI, grant 917.13.350).
Declaration of interest: All authors have completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest; I.P.K. has a patent related to vitamin D measurement (PCT/NL2012/050849) pending; all other authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Supplementary material available online
Supplementary Appendix I–II and Figure 1 to be found online at http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/07853890.2015.1073347