A recent study published in Acta Medica Iranica found that vitamin D deficiency was associated with a three times increased risk of having arthralgia.

Arthralgia translates to joint pain and is caused by injury, infection, or illness. The most common cause is arthritis.

Vitamin D deficiency is associated with joint and muscle pain. This led the researchers to hypothesize that those with arthralgia are at greater risk for vitamin D deficiency.

Researchers recruited 167 patients with arthralgia not related to a known clinical condition. The researchers also enrolled a control group of 283 people without arthralgia. Vitamin D levels were measured and then compared between the two groups.

The researchers found that patients with arthralgia had significantly lower vitamin D levels compared to those without arthralgia. Specifically, 70.7% of patients with arthralgia were vitamin D deficient compared to 44.4% without arthralgia.

They also found that arthralgia was more prevalent in those with vitamin D levels less than 10 ng/ml compared to participants with levels of 30 ng/ml or higher.

“In conclusion this study indicated that unexplained arthralgia is significantly associated with vitamin D deficiency,” the researchers stated.

The researchers call for future studies to determine if vitamin D status relates to the development of inflammatory joint diseases in those with arthralgia.

Source

Heidari, Heidari, HajianTilaki. Relationship between Unexplained Arthralgia and Vitamin D Deficiency: a Case Control Study. Acta Medica Iranica, 2014.f