Vitamin D deficiency and periodontal clinical attachment loss in HIV-seropositive women: A secondary analysis conducted in the Women's Interagency HIV Study (WIHS)

Objective: The aim of this study was to test a hypothesized positive association between low vitamin D (VitD) serum levels and the severity of periodontal disease in women with HIV infection. Study Design: This was a cross-sectional secondary analysis of data from an oral substudy conducted within the Chicago site of the Women's Interagency HIV Study. Serum VitD levels and clinical attachment loss (CAL) measurements were available for 74 women with HIV infection. VitD levels were treated as both continuous and categorical variables in bivariate and multivariate analyses. Mean clinical attachment loss (mCAL) was determined for each subject by obtaining the averages of measurements taken at 4 sites in each measured tooth. Results: Average age of study participants (n = 74) was 39.6 years (standard deviation 7.2), and the majority were African Americans (70.3%) with VitD deficiency (58.1%). VitD deficiency was positively associated with higher mCAL (P =.012). After adjustment for race, age, smoking, and HIV viral load, an association was found between VitD deficiency and mCAL (Beta 0.438; P =.036). Conclusions: We identified a previously unreported association between VitD deficiency and mCAL in women with HIV infection. Larger and more inclusive, multisite, longitudinal studies are warranted to investigate whether these findings can be generalized to all individuals with HIV infection in the current treatment era and to determine causality.