RESEARCH - Vitamin D status and its association with disease activity and severity in African Americans with recent-onset RA

[Guest guest]

J Rheumatol. 2009 Dec 23. [Epub ahead of print]

Vitamin D Status and Its Associations with Disease Activity and

Severity in African Americans with Recent-onset Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Craig SM, Yu F, Curtis JR, Alarcón GS, Conn DL, Jonas B, Callahan LF,

EA, Moreland LW, Bridges SL Jr, Mikuls TR.

From the University of Nebraska Medical Center , the Nebraska

Arthritis Outcomes Research Center (NAORC), and Omaha Veterans Affairs

Medical Center , Omaha, Nebraska; University of Alabama at Birmingham;

Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia; University of North Carolina,

Chapel Hill, North Carolina; Medical University of South Carolina,

ton, South Carolina; and University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania, USA.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency and

the associations of vitamin D concentration with disease status in

African Americans with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

METHODS: Study participants (n = 266) were enrolled in the Consortium

for the Longitudinal Evaluation of African Americans with Early RA

(CLEAR) Registry. The vitamin 25(OH)-D was measured on baseline

plasma, and associations of 25(OH)-D with disease status (baseline and

at 3 years' disease duration) were examined using univariate and

multivariate regression.

RESULTS: The prevalence of 25(OH)-D insufficiency (</= 37.5 nmol/l or

15 ng/ml) was 50%, with the highest prevalence in winter. In

unadjusted analyses, vitamin D concentrations were inversely

associated with baseline pain (p = 0.04), swollen joints (p = 0.04),

and Disease Activity Score (DAS28, p = 0.05) but not with measures at

3 years' disease duration. There were no multivariate associations of

25(OH)-D with any disease measures at baseline or at 3 years, with the

exception of a positive borderline association with rheumatoid factor

positivity at enrollment (p = 0.05).

CONCLUSION: Vitamin D insufficiency is common in African Americans

with recent-onset RA. Unadjusted associations of circulating vitamin D

with baseline pain, swollen joints, and DAS28 were explained by

differences in season, age, and gender and were not significant in

multivariate analyses. In contrast to reports of Northern Europeans

with early inflammatory arthritis, there are not strong associations

of 25(OH)-D concentration with symptoms or disease severity in African

Americans with RA.

PMID: 20032100

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20032100

Not an MD