VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY IN PATIENTS WITH ESSENTIAL HYPERTENSION

Akber Yousfani, Tariq Zaffar Shaikh, Majid Ali Soomro, Athar Hussain Memon, Jamrose Durrani, Zaheer Ahmed, Zulfiqar Ali Qutrio Baloch and *Syed Zulfiquar Ali Shah

ABSTRACT

Objective: To determine the frequency of vitamin D deficiency in patients with essential hypertension. Patients and Methods: This cross sectional descriptive study was conducted in department of Medicine and Cardiology at Liaquat University Hospital Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan. The inclusion criteria of the study were hypertensive patients for ≥03 months duration regardless of treatment, of 20-60 years of age and either gender presented at Liaquat University Hospital Hyderabad. All the subjects with essential hypertension will be further evaluate for the serum vitamin D level by taking 2 ml venous blood sample in a sterilize disposable syringe and sent to laboratory for analysis. Vitamin D deficiencies were defined as mild, moderate and severe respectively. All the data was analyzed in SPSS version 17, the frequency and percentages (%) was calculated for categorical variables while the mean ±SD for quantitative variables. The Chi-square test was applied on categorical variables and P-value ≤0.05 was the level of significance. Results: During six months study period total 188 patients with essential hypertension were evaluated for vitamin D deficiency. The mean age ±SD for overall population was observed as 44.76±8.52 while it was 42.73±7.55 and 49.98±8.94 in male and female population respectively. The mean ±SD of Vitamin D in vitamin D deficient essential hypertensive male and female population was 15.76±3.72 and 8.97±2.85 whereas the mean ±SD of vitamin D in non deficient vitamin D essential hypertensive male and female population was 66.76±4.74 and 54.99±5.52 respectively. The vitamin D deficiency was observed in 109 (58%) patients p<0.01 with male predominance (58.7%), p=0.03. Of 109, 22 had mild, 44 had moderate and 43 had severe vitamin D deficiency. Conclusion: Overall the vitamin D levels are significantly low in relation to age, gender and severity in patients with essential hypertension.

Keywords: Hypertension, Vitamin D and dihydroxycholecalciferol.