Association of vitamin D deficiency with prediabetes among elderly New Mexicans

In New Mexico, the mortality rate due to diabetes is 1.5 times higher than the nation. Diabetes causes a huge healthcare burden. In 2012, the national cost due to diabetes was $245 billion. Prior studies have established a positive correlation between vitamin D deficiency and diabetes; whether the same relationship holds for prediabetes is not well studied. Our purpose of the study was to find whether there was an association between vitamin D deficiency and prediabetes. We also wanted to find out if the association was stronger among Hispanics than non-Hispanic whites (NHW). Our rationale was to delay the progression of diabetes by preventing at a prediabetes stage with vitamin D supplementation in deficient population. In New Mexico, there are 106,310 adults diagnosed with prediabetes which is 7% of our population. Therefore, it is crucial that a preventive measure is in place to impede the progression of diabetes among a vulnerable population where there is a high rate of diabetes, obesity and vitamin D deficiency. ivWe planned to conduct our research with a cross-sectional study design. To do this we randomly selected 200 subjects from New Mexico Elder Health Survey 1993-1995, containing only Medicare recipients of Albuquerque. The participants were 65 years and older, containing non-Hispanic whites (55%) and Hispanics (45%) with relatively equal subjects with normal fasting plasma glucose and prediabetes. There were equal numbers of males and females. Also there were equal distributions of normal and deficient vitamin D level among our study subjects. From our statistical analyses, we found there was no association between vitamin D deficiency and prediabetes. However, when we conducted multivariable logistic regression analysis with interaction between Hispanic ethnicity and vitamin D deficiency with prediabetes as outcome, we found that Hispanics with vitamin D deficiency have 2.4-fold increased odds for having prediabetes as compared to NHW. Our findings are innovative, interesting and novel and will provide rationales for future research on vitamin D and prediabetes