Association Between Lower Levels of Vitamin D and Inflammation in the Geriatric Population: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

There have been suggestions that vitamin D has anti-inflammatory effects; however, the variabilities of vitamin D levels among specific groups of patients and its association with these inflammatory events have not been demonstrated. This study aims to study the association between vitamin D levels and vitamin D deficiency and inflammatory events among the elderly population. PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, and ClinicalKey were systematically searched in December 2023 to include the relevant data. Comprehensive Meta-Analysis (version 3.0, Biostat, Inc., Englewood, NJ) was the software used for data analyses. A total of 12 studies were included in this analysis with 14,717 elderly patients. There was an overall significant decrease in vitamin D levels in elderly patients with high inflammatory markers compared to controls (Hedges' g = -0.221, 95% CI: -0.268, -0.173, P < 0.001), and event of vitamin D deficiency was found to be 0.321 (95% CI: 0.305, 0.337, P < 0.001). There is a significant decrease in vitamin D levels among the elderly with different inflammatory conditions. Future longitudinal studies and well-designed, large, randomized controlled trials are required to study the association between vitamin D deficiency and the incidence of inflammatory events in this specific group of patients.