Abstract
Vitamin D is in fact a group of substances collectively known as calciferols that belongs to vitamins soluble in fat or biologically active steroids with hormonal effect. Vitamin D receptors were found in brain.
Vitamin D has influence on serotonin synthesis and dopamine metabolism. Over a past few years a number of studies found an association between low vitamin D serum levels and cogni-tive, psychotic, affective and sleeping disorders.
Apart from a recapitulation of an importance of vitamin D in psychiatry, our article aims at capturing vitamin D [25(OH)D] levels in hospitalized patients during individual months of a year and verifying the hypothesis that vitamin D serum level is associated with a number of sunlight hours. We enrolled in total 357 patients aged 31.6+-11.8, 149 women (41.7 %), hospitalized between 2013-2019.
Serum concentration of 25(OH)D was determined by imunochemiluminiscence technology of Elecsys imunoassay, Roche company. Concentration 25(OH)D below 50 nmol/l was considered as deficiency, 50-75 nmol/l as suboptimal state and concentration over 75 nmol/l as optimal state.
Vitamin D serum level was significantly influenced by a number of sunlight hours in January-August and September-December intervals. Mean serum 25(OH)D concentration was 41.8+-19.4 nmol/l.
The highest mean concentration was reached in August (56.0+-21.8 nmol/l) and the lowest in March (26.4+-12.2 nmol/l). Altogether 258 patients (72 %) were considered to be 25(OH)D deficient, 62 patients (17.3 %) suboptimal and only 18 (5 %) reached the optimal serum level of 25(OH)D.
Our results present insufficient 25(OH)D serum level in psychiatric patients. Nevertheless, those patients not able to acquire a sufficient dose of 25(OH)D from sun light or diet might profit from usage of vitamin supplements.