Prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among Turkish, Moroccan, Indian and sub-Sahara African populations in Europe and their countries of origin: an overview.

What It Covers

The paper reports a study of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc, published as a review.

The higher the latitude, the less vitamin D is produced in the skin.

Most European countries are located at higher latitudes than the countries of origin of their nonwestern immigrants.

Their aim was to compare the serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) concentration of nonwestern immigrant populations with those of the population in their country of origin, and the indigenous population of the country they migrated to.

Why It Was Studied

Vitamin D status of nonwestern immigrants in Europe was poor.

Vitamin D status of nonwestern populations in their countries of origin varied, being either similar to the immigrant populations in Europe or higher than in European indigenous populations.

Who the Included Studies Covered

By PubMed's age tags, the people studied were teenagers, young adults, adults, middle-aged adults and older adults, both men and women.

How the Review Was Done

The researchers performed literature searches in the "PubMed" and "Embase" databases, restricted to 1990 and later.

The search profile consisted of terms referring to vitamin D or vitamin D deficiency, prevalence or cross-sectional studies, and countries or ethnicity.

Titles and abstracts were reviewed to identify studies on population-based mean serum 25(OH)D concentrations among Turkish, Moroccan, Indian, and sub-Sahara African populations in Europe, Turkey, Morocco, India, and sub-Sahara Africa.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Africa South of the Sahara, Emigration and Immigration, Europe, India, Morocco, Prevalence and Turkey.

What This Means in Plain Language

This is a review of Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 4 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2011 (Osteoporosis international : a journal established as result of cooperation between the European Foundation for Osteoporosis and the National Osteoporosis Foundation of the USA), a journal based in England.

More context: the Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc compound page, all human trials.