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Background: As documented by a large body of evidences, Hypovitaminosis D prevails both in the general and the hospitalized populations. We conducted this study to determine the prevalence of hypovitaminosis D amongst the patients visiting a tertiary care hospital and compare the rate gender-wise, across different categories of socio-demographic variables. Methods: It was a cross-sectional study (retrospective chart review) based on the hospital registry of patients at College of Medical Sciences and Teaching Hospital, Bharatpur, Chitwan, Nepal. From the registry, we retrieved the socio-demographic variables (age, gender, ethnicity and season) along with serum vitamin D (25-hydroxy-cholecalciferol) concentrations of the study subjects from January 2015 to August 2018, for our analysis. Hypovitaminosis D was defined as serum vitamin D

Background: The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the etiological agent of coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19), a respiratory infection that, starting from December 2019, has spread around the world in a few months, becoming a pandemic. The lack of initial knowledge on its management has led to a great effort in developing vaccines and in finding therapeutic weapons capable of improving the clinical outcome of the affected patients. In particular, the possible role of vitamin D status in the management of COVID-19 has been widely analysed, resulting in a great amount of data. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to assess whether hypovitaminosis D is a risk factor for developing SARS-CoV-2 infection and whether it affects the worsening of the clinical course of COVID-19. Methods: Data were extracted through extensive searches in the Pubmed, MEDLINE, Cochrane, Academic One Files, Google Scholar, and Scopus databases from December 2019 to January 2021, using the keywords: “Vitamin D”, “25 hydroxy Vitamin D”, “25 hydroxycholecalciferol”, “cholecalciferol”, “COVID 19″, “SARS-CoV-2″. We included observational cohort, cross-sectional, and case-control studies that evaluated differences in serum levels of 25‑hydroxy-cholecalciferol [25(OH)D] in patients who were positive or negative for SARS-CoV-2, in patients with mild or severe forms of COVID-19, and in patients who died or were discharged from the hospital. Finally, studies that evaluated the risk of developing severe illness or death in patients with vitamin D deficiency (VDD), defined as levels of 25(OH)D

Vascular antiphospholipid syndrome (VAPS) and obstetric (OAPS) are different entities because some patients only develop thrombosis (without recurrent pregnancy losses) and vice versa. Only two articles have reported that low 25-hydroxy-cholecalciferol (vitamin D3, VD3) levels were not correlated with the presence of conventional antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL Abs: anticardiolipin (aCL), anti-beta2glycoprotein I (aβ2gpI), and lupus anticoagulant (LA)), but no article analyzed the association of VD3 and anti-annexin A5 (aanxA5) Abs. The aim of our study was to investigate the association between VD3, multiple positivity of conventional aPL and aanxA5 Abs levels only in female OAPS vs. VAPS. Our study included 62 consecutive female PAPS patients. Concentrations of Abs were measured by ELISA, while VD3 levels were determined by immunochemiluminescence. Only 10/62 (16.13%) had sufficient (≥ 30 ng/ml) VD3 levels, while 48/62 (77.42%) and 4/62 (6.45%) had insufficiency and VD3 deficiency, respectively. Statistically significant VD3 deficiency was noticed in VAPS (vs. OAPS, P = 0.013). A negative correlation between VD3 levels and the age of patients was noticed (r = - 0.493, P = 0.032) only in VAPS subgroup. Multiple positivity of aPL and aanxA5 Abs was not associated with VD3 deficiency. Newly emerging aPL Abs, such as aanxA5 Abs, or their combinations with classical aPL Abs are not associated with VD3 deficiency in neither OAPS nor VAPS patients. Due to its immunomodulatory roles in B-Ly homeostasis, supplementation with VD3 should be considered in APS, at least in subgroup with severe form of the disease, i.e., VAPS.

INTRODUCTION Vitamin D insufficiency contributes to calcitriol (1,25D) reduction in chronic kidney disease (CKD). Since CKD patients on conservative therapy (CRF) mostly develop, whereas transplant (TX) patients possibly recover from, secondary hyperparathyroidism (SH), we hypothesized a different efficiency of vitamin D hydroxylation in these 2 clinical conditions. METHODS We compared the impact of reduced 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25D) on circulating 1,25D in 111 CRF (mean age 63 ± 15 years; estimated glomerular filtration rate [eGFR] 36.4 ± 22.0 ml/min) and in 136 TX patients (mean age 50 ± 11 years; eGFR 47 ± 19.0 ml/min). RESULTS Vitamin D insufficient patients (69.1% in TX vs. 82% in CRF; p