Vitamin D deficiency and anthropometric indicators of adiposity in school-age children: a prospective study
Diane Gilbert-Diamond, Ana Baylin, Mercedes Mora-Plazas, Constanza Marin, Joanne E Arsenault, Michael D Hughes, Walter C Willett and Eduardo Villamor
Am J Clin Nutr (October 6, 2010). doi:10.3945/ajcn.2010.29746
1 From the Departments of Nutrition (DG-D, JEA, WCW, and EV) and Biostatistics (MDH), School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA; the Department of Genetics, Medical School, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (DG-D); the Departments of Epidemiology (AB and EV) and Environmental Health Sciences (EV), School of Public Health, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI; and the Department of Nutrition, National University of Colombia, Bogota, Colombia (MM-P and CM).
2 Supported by the Harvard Clinical Nutrition Research Center (P30-DK040561), the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, and the Secretary of Education of Bogota.
3 Address correspondence to E Villamor, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. E-mail: villamor at umich.edu .
Background: Cross-sectional studies have indicated that vitamin D serostatus is inversely associated with adiposity. It is unknown whether vitamin D deficiency is a risk factor for the development of adiposity in children.
Objective: We investigated the associations between vitamin D serostatus and changes in body mass index (BMI; in kg/m2), skinfold-thickness ratio (subscapular-to-triceps), waist circumference, and height in a longitudinal study in children from Bogota, Colombia.
Design: We quantified plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D 25(OH)D concentrations in baseline samples of a randomly selected group of 479 schoolchildren aged 5–12 y and classified vitamin D status as deficient 25(OH)D concentrations <50 nmol/L, insufficient 25(OH)D concentrations 50 and <75 nmol/L, or sufficient 25(OH)D concentrations 75 nmol/L. We measured anthropometric variables annually for a median of 30 mo. We estimated the average change in each anthropometric indicator according to baseline vitamin D status by using multivariate mixed linear regression models.
Results: Vitamin D–deficient children had an adjusted 0.1/y greater change in BMI than did vitamin D–sufficient children (P for trend = 0.05).
Similarly, vitamin D–deficient children had a 0.03/y (95% CI: 0.01, 0.05/y) greater change in subscapular-to-triceps skinfold-thickness ratio and a 0.8 cm/y (95% CI: 0.1, 1.6 cm/y) greater change in waist circumference that did vitamin D–sufficient children.
Vitamin D deficiency was related to slower linear growth in girls (–0.6 cm/y, P = 0.04) but not in boys (0.3 cm/y, P = 0.34); however, an interaction with sex was not statistically significant.
Conclusion: Vitamin D serostatus was inversely associated with the development of adiposity in school-age children.
Received for publication April 28, 2010. Accepted for publication September 8, 2010.
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