Association between vitamin D levels and extensive dental caries in children, Karnataka, India

Background: Dental caries is a global public health concern, particularly for young children. The objective of the study was to investigate the severity of dental caries in children with vitamin D deficiency and to compare the vitamin D levels among children with extensive dental caries and without caries. Methods: A case control study was carried out among 38 children between 2 to 16 years of age with 19 children in case (with dental caries) and 19 in control (without dental caries) groups from February 2022 to September 2023. Caries status of the children was recorded using decayed, extracted, missing, and filled teeth (DMFT) index. Every child had blood sample taken for serum 25(OH) vitamin D levels. After gathering all the data, it was statistically analysed. Results: The mean serum 25(OH) vitamin D level was 24.93 ng/ml (SD±7.05) among cases and 18.67 ng/mL (S. D±8.88) among the controls. When the mean levels of serum 25(OH) vitamin D were compared between case and control groups, there was a statistically significant difference (p value=0.021). Simple linear regression in case group showed inverse correlation between the level of vitamin D and dental caries, however it was not statistically significant (p value=0.58). Conclusions: Our results showed that there was no significant association between Vitamin D levels and dental caries. This may be due to small sample size which is one of the limitations of our study. We need further studies with larger sample size to study this association.