ABSTRACT
Recent pandemic of vitamin D deficiency is co-existing with type II diabetes mellitus pandemic. Even in India, vitamin D insufficiency/deficiency is common among individuals with pre-diabetes. If correlation can be established between these two and risk of impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) or diabetes can be predicted based on serum vitamin D status, much early detection of pre-diabetes or diabetes will be possible and preventive measures can be taken. Not too many studies have been done in this context, especially in North Bengal region of West Bengal, India. We wanted to evaluate the correlation between vitamin D status and glycaemic status of individual and predict the risk of impaired glucose tolerance depending on vitamin D, independent of other factors.METHODSAfter ethical clearance and informed consent, 430 study subjects were interviewed, examined, blood sample collected and tested. Data was entered in Microsoft Excel 2007 and analysed using appropriate software. Correlation and multinomial regression analysis were done.RESULTSMean ± SD of serum 25(OH) D level is found to be 21.53±7.06 ng/ml among a total of 430 study participants. 41.86% of participants were found to be with insufficient vitamin D status. Pearson’s correlation between serum 25(OH) D level and post prandial blood sugar is found to be strongly negative while Spearman’s correlation between vitamin D status and post prandial glycaemic status of individuals is found to be strongly positive. If vitamin D status changes from “Sufficient” to “Insufficient” or “Deficient”, risk of IGT increases by 17 times and 16.3 times respectively.CONCLUSIONSStrong positive correlation exists between vitamin D status and glycaemic status of individuals. Estimation of 25(OH) D level may be used as a screening test for detection of risk of IGT.