Vitamin D deficiency is prevalent today not only among the elderly but pervasively throughout
all ages of life.This is due in part to systemic diseases that affect vitamin D metabolism
to changes in lifestyle such as insufficient exposure to sunlight and to increased use of
sunscreen. Apart from the obvious effects of vitamin D deficiency on skeletal metabolism the
problem is assuming even greater significance because observational and interventional studies
have linked vitamin D deficiency to cardiovascular disease cancer and diabetes. This book
addresses a variety of important issues that have emerged from this fast-moving area of
clinical medicine. The topics include assays of vitamin D and its binding protein effects on
aging and associated complications primary and secondary states of altered parathyroid hormone
secretion vitamin D in the growing years of children and adolescents nutritional requirements
and vitamin D as it relates to systemic disorders such as diabetes mellitus. Vitamin D in
Clinical Medicine aims to offer new insights in an evidence-based way on important issues
related to vitamin D. It is written for general practitioners and internists as well as for
endocrinologists nutritionists pulmonologists cardiologists and oncologists.
