Is suboptimal vitamin D status a highly prevalent but treatable condition in both hospitalized patients and the general population?
Poor vitamin D status (ranging from suboptimal to overt deficiency) is common in both hospitalized patients and ostensibly healthy individuals of all ages and geographic latitude. Suboptimal vitamin D status is associated with muscle weakness, functional deficits, and perhaps longer length of stay of hospitalized patients. Predictors of vitamin D status include race, poor nutrition, advanced age, use of multivitamins, ultraviolet light exposure, and grip strength. Fortunately, treatment with 50,000 IU of vitamin D(2) for several weeks is a very inexpensive and safe yet effective treatment to replete vitamin D status.
In patients with STEMI, female sex was associated with a lower total ST-segment elevation and there was an independent inverse association with marked ST-segment elevation.