• Low Vitamin D levels in both chronic hepatitis B patients and healthy controls: Findings from a study of North-East IRAN
  • Aida Gholoobi,1,* Yasamin Alamian,2 Mojtaba Meshkat,3 Zahra Meshkat,4
    1. 1 Medical Genetics Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran. 2Medical Genetics Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran; 2 Metabolic Syndrome Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran
    3. Department of medical science, Mashhad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, Iran.
    4. Antimicrobial Resistance Research Center, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran.


  • Introduction: Hepatitis B is one of the most common infectious diseases worldwide. The present study aimed to evaluate the serum levels of vitamin D in patients with chronic hepatitis B infection and the control group.
  • Methods: This is a case-control study on 89 individuals infected with hepatitis B as a case group and 300 subjects who were not infected with HCV, HBV, and HDV and were replicated in terms of age and sex with the hepatitis B group. Serum levels of 25 (OH) D3 were measured as the main outcome in both case and control groups. Finally, all the data were analyzed along with demographic and related laboratory results of patients and healthy groups by SPSS software version 26.
  • Results: The mean age of subjects in the hepatitis B and control groups was 47.11 ± 13.26 and 47.89. 7.81 years, respectively (P = .6). Of 389 participants, 198 (50.9%) were male and 191 (49.1%) were female (p = .5). The mean serum level of vitamin D in the hepatitis B and control group was 24.98 ± 19.92, and 13.57 ± 7.77, respectively. The median serum level of vitamin D in the hepatitis B patients was significantly higher than that of the control group (P = .0001). In the hepatitis B group, 43.8% of patients had vitamin D deficiency, 38.2% of patients had insufficient serum vitamin D levels and 18.0% had sufficient vitamin D serum levels. Also in the control group, 80.7% of patients had vitamin D deficiency, 10.7% of patients had insufficient serum vitamin D levels and 8.7% had sufficient vitamin D serum levels (P = .001). Other results showed that there was no significant relationship between HBV viral load and serum levels of vitamin D (P = .88).
  • Conclusion: Based on the results, vitamin D deficiency was observed in both patients with hepatitis B and healthy individuals. This study has found that the median serum levels of vitamin D in hepatitis B patients were significantly higher than that of the control group. Due to the lack of studies in this field in the world and in our country and contradictory findings, it seems necessary to conduct additional studies with a higher sample size in the future.
  • Keywords: 25 (OH) D3; HBV, Viral load, Chronic HBV