Vitamin D or calciferol is very important for health, and especially to prevent bone diseases, such as osteoporosis. To synthesize it we need to expose ourselves to sunlight, but curiously, and despite the fact that in Spain we enjoy a privileged climate in this sense, it has been detected that a large number of people have vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency, especially in older adults, and this deficit is also being increasingly related to different health problems.
The 4th edition of the ARC on Vitamin D has just been held in Madrid, organized by Luzán 5, with the endorsement of the Spanish Society for Bone Research and Mineral Metabolism (SEIOMM) and sponsored by Grupo Italfarmaco, in which they have met about 300 health professionals. The event was aimed at doctors from different specialties and was inaugurated by the Collegiate Medical Organization (OMC) and was broadcast live to Barcelona, Cáceres, Oviedo, Seville, Valencia and Zaragoza.
This ARC (Annual Review of Congresses and Scientific Literature) has a scientific committee of experts in Vitamin D with the aim of carrying out a review of the communications presented in the last national and international congresses and in this new call clinical cases have also been presented practices of interest Dr. Manuel Sosa Henríquez, coordinator of the event and professor of Medicine at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, has indicated that the issues that have generated the most discussion have been “the extraosseous effects of vitamin D, the need or not to monitor their levels and the differences between the different metabolites available for treatment”.
“Vitamin D has anti-inflammatory and anticancer actions, improving the prognosis and symptoms of some very frequent metabolic pathologies such as diabetes mellitus, autoimmune or systemic diseases”
In addition to protecting our bones, vitamin D also has other health benefits. Thus, and as explained by Dr. Óscar Torregrosa Suau, from the Bone Metabolism Unit of the Internal Medicine Service of the General University Hospital of Elche, Alicante: “vitamin D has anti-inflammatory and anticancer actions, improving the prognosis and symptoms of some very frequent metabolic pathologies in our specialty such as diabetes mellitus, autoimmune and systemic diseases and many others. It is in our power to diagnose this deficit and correct it”.
When supplements are needed to avoid vitamin D deficiency
There is controversy regarding what levels of vitamin D it would be necessary to take supplements, but the main recommendation guides consider that 30 ng/ml is the optimal level that should be maintained. According to Dr. Gonzalo Allo Miguel, from the endocrinology and nutrition service of the Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre in Madrid: “A recent Spanish study has shown that supplementation with 2,000 IU of cholecalciferol together with calcium in a mainly osteoporotic population has shown to reach levels of 25(OH)D above 30 ng/ml and maintain them in those patients who already had them, all this without altering either calcium or phosphatemia”.
Dr. Francisco José Tarazona Santabalbina, from the geriatric service of the Hospital Universitario de la Ribera in Alzira, Valencia, indicates that: “recent studies confirm the link between vitamin D deficiency and the presence of bone fragility, a higher incidence of hospital infections in case of hip fracture, and even higher incidence of atrial fibrillation and mortality in patients with prior heart failure.”
For her part, Dr. Mª Carmen Valdés Llorca, a specialist in family and community medicine at the Fuencarral Health Center in Madrid, highlights: “identifying patients who present a clinical profile of vitamin D deficiency is an objective to be achieved, since on many occasions they go unnoticed.”
Álvaro Acebrón, general director of Grupo Italfarmaco in Spain, declares that: “from Italfarmaco we continue to support the continuous training of health professionals in a format such as the ARC, where the results of the most current research in the field of Vitamin D are presented. and that have been published in international journals or presented at the most relevant world congresses over the last year”.
Along the same lines, Antonio Franco, CEO of Luzán 5, underlines that: “the ARCs offer a very enriching space for debate as the day is always organized under a multidisciplinary approach. It is, in short, a concentrate of science focused on the updating needs of our healthcare professionals, which ends up resulting in an improvement in healthcare activity”.
.