Background

There is wide spread prevalence of Vitamin-D deficiency with low dietary calcium intake in the Indian population. Post-menopausal women are at increased risk of osteoporosis and fractures as the hormonal changes after menopause. Though administered rampantly, the effect of Vitamin-D supplementation on general well-being and quality of life in post-menopausal women, if any, is not well documented and hence this study was conducted.

Materials and methods

A community based interventional study on 290 post-menopausal women was conducted in Ludhiana. The subjects were interviewed to obtain their demographic, lifestyle and chronic diseases details. WHO-STEPS methodology and CDC HRQOL-14 questionnaire were the tools used to gather the information. The participants were supplemented with Vitamin-D 60,000IU weekly for 8 weeks. Chi-square test and Paired t- test was applied, to assess the statistical significance of observed differences.

Results

The mean age of the participants was 56.5 years. There was a significant improvement in the self-perceived general health status by respondents following intervention (p = 0.0000), reduction of the mean number of physically unhealthy days (p = 0.0001), mentally unhealthy days (p = 0.0000), and also total unhealthy days (p = 0.000000) post-intervention. Symptoms like pain, depression and tension/anxiety were observed to have significantly decreased in the respondents following the intervention. Most of the women reported a significant high improvement in vitality/energy levels.

Conclusions

There was a significant improvement in the general health status and quality of life of the post-menopausal women following vitamin D supplementation.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Indian Council of Medical Research for financial help to this study.

Keywords

Vitamin D, Quality of life, Post-menopausal women