People with extremely low vitamin D levels consume 2X more health care dollars – 2018

---

Vitamin D and health care costs: Results from two independent population-based cohort studies

Clinical Nutrition Volume 37, Issue 6, Part A, December 2018, Pages 2149-2155 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clnu.2017.10.014
A. Hannemann a, H. Wallaschofski a, M. Nauck a, P. Marschall b, S. Flessa b, H.J. Grabe c, C.O. Schmidt d, S.E. Baumeister d e

ng/ml	% increase in total health care $$
5 ng	211%
10 ng	42%
20 ng	14%
30 ng	reference

Background & aims
Vitamin D deficiency is associated with higher morbidity. However, there is few data regarding the effect of vitamin D deficiency on health care costs. This study examined the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between the serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D concentration (25OHD) and direct health care costs and hospitalization in two independent samples of the general population in North-Eastern Germany .

Methods
We studied 7217 healthy individuals from the ‘Study of Health in Pomerania’ (SHIP n = 3203) and the ‘Study of Health in Pomerania-Trend’ (SHIP-Trend n = 4014) who had valid 25OHD measurements and provided data on annual total costs, outpatient costs, hospital stays, and inpatient costs. The associations between 25OHD concentrations (modelled continuously using factional polynomials) and health care costs were examined using a generalized linear model with gamma distribution and a log link. Poisson regression models were used to estimate relative risks of hospitalization.

Results
In cross-sectional analysis of SHIP-Trend, non-linear associations between the 25OHD concentration and inpatient costs and hospitalization were detected: participants with 25OHD concentrations of 5, 10 and 15 ng/ml had 226.1%, 51.5% and 14.1%, respectively, higher inpatient costs than those with 25OHD concentrations of 20 ng/ml (overall p-value = 0.001) in multivariable models.

Conclusions
We found a relation between lower 25OHD concentrations and increased inpatient health care costs and hospitalization. Our results thus indicate an influence of vitamin D deficiency on health care costs in the general population.
 Download the PDF from VitaminDWiki

---

17 citations of this study as of Oct 2023

Google Scholar

• 5000 IU Vitamin D daily resulted in lower health care costs - RCT Oct 2023 in VitaminDWiki

---

VitaminDWiki - Cost savings with Vitamin D contains:

157 items include:

• Vitamin D has been found to be cost-effective by many studies
• Diabetes prevented by 50,000 IU vitamin D monthly (Iran) – Jan 2022
• People with extremely low vitamin D levels consume 2X more health care dollars – 2018
• Giving free vitamin D to every Iranian would pay for itself by just reducing CVD – Oct 2021
• Medical problems are thought to be a cause of 66 percent of bankruptcies – April 2019
• Vitamin D is the 3rd most important contributor to health, following exercise and food
• 10 fewer days of ICU Mechanical Ventilation 300,000 IU injection of vitamin D – RCT March 2019
• Employers gain 10 dollars in productivity for every dollar spent on giving Vitamin D for free
• Employers should give night shift workers free vitamin D – GMB Union June 2019
• Biology of Vitamin D – 30ng min., 50ng preferred, 1000X lower cost than health problem – Feb 2019
• Heart attack ICU costs cut in half by Vitamin D – Oct 2018
• Dutch Vitamin D cost-effectivity Calculations (they prescribe 100,000 IU for Multiple Sclerosis) – Jan 2022
• ICU cost reduced by at least 27,000 dollars if get high dose vitamin D in first week - April 2017
• If you cannot readily get medical treatment, consider Alternative Med such as vitamin D

---

VitaminDWiki - VA found less testing for vitamin D resulted in increased health costs – Jan 2012