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Vitamin D Status in the North African Population: a Review

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Clinical Reviews in Bone and Mineral Metabolism Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Even though the North African countries are located in one of the sunniest place in the world, several North African studies from there proved a high prevalence of hypovitaminosis D in men and women. The objectives of the present review are to summarize the existing literature on vitamin D status and to list the main predictors of hypovitaminosis D in North African population. We searched Medline/PubMed, Cochrane, CINAHL, Embase, Scopus, and Springerlink for the published data on vitamin D in North African countries. The identified articles had to meet all the following criteria: human clinical outcomes rather than animal experiments, a cross-sectional or longitudinal study and quantitative information on vitamin D status in North Africa must be included. Several studies proved a high prevalence of hypovitaminosis D in North African men and women. Also, these studies reported that determinants of vitamin D status were the culture of avoiding the sun, the wearing of the veil for women, the pigmented skin, the lack of vitamin D supplementation in the aliments, the breastfeeding for 2 years. This review on vitamin D status in North Africa indicates a high prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency in men and women (among all age groups).

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Abbreviations

Vitamin D3:

cholecalciferol

Vitamin D2:

ergocalciferol

Vitamin D:

vitamin D2 or Vitamin D3

DBP:

vitamin D–binding protein

1, 25 (OH)2D:

1,25 dihydroxyvitamin D

GC:

group-specific component

VDBP:

vitamin D–binding protein

RA:

rheumatoid arthritis

BMI:

body mass index

UVB:

ultraviolet B light

Conversion factor:

2.5 nmol/l serum 25OHD = 1 ng/ml serum25OHD

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Biochemistry Department, Ibn Zohr University, Agadir, Morocco

    Aissam El Maataoui

  2. Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy, Military Hospital, Biochemistry Department, Mohamed V University, Rabat, Morocco

    Zohra Ouzzif

Authors
  1. Aissam El Maataoui
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Contributions

Aissam El maataoui wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed equally in the literature search, interpretation of the articles, and review of the manuscript. All the authors have read and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Aissam El Maataoui.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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El Maataoui, A., Ouzzif, Z. Vitamin D Status in the North African Population: a Review. Clinic Rev Bone Miner Metab 16, 67–73 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12018-018-9247-y

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