Annu Francis ¹, R. Balasasirekha ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Food Science and Nutrition, Avinashilingam Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women, Coimbatore, IN

Abstract

The study was aimed to evaluate the effect of sunlight on vitamin D and calcium status among the college girls, aged 18 – 22 years. One hundred and fifty girls were selected out of which 45 with vitamin D deficiency were considered for experiment. The participants were divided into three groups of 15 each: Experimental I - curd supplementation, exposure to sunlight and nutrition education; Experimental II - exposure to sunlight and nutrition education and Control group with no intervention. Anthropometric measurements, blood haemoglobin, serum vitamin D and calcium were analysed before and after supplementation for 50 days. In the experimental group I, there was a mean increase of 3.22 ng/ml of vitamin D and was significant at 1% level and in the experimental group II the increase was 1.03 ng/ml (significant at 5% level). There was a mean difference of 1.57 ng/ml in the control group which was not significant. The mean initial calcium level in the experimental group I was 9.33 mg/dl and the final value is 9.67 mg/dl and the increase was significant at 1% level. The experimental group II had a mean initial calcium level of 9.36 mg/dl and the mean final value of 9.56 ml g/dl. The mean difference of 0.05 mg/dl was noted in serum calcium before and after supplementation in the control group. The experimental group I showed a positive correlation of 0.035 between vitamin D and sunlight whereas in experimental group II and control group there was a negative correlation of 0.045 and 0.072 respectively. It can be concluded that sunlight had an effect on vitamin D status and the calcium level of the participants further highlighting that sunlight exposure is an effective method of improving the vitamin D status.

Keywords

Vitamin D, calcium, Absorption, Sunlight, Curd, Exposure, Nutrition Education.

Full Text