66 Asian Journal of Medical Sciences | Dec 2022 | Vol 13 | Issue 12 INTRODUCTION Dementia is a common public health problem. The number of people with dementia worldwide is estimated to be 131.5 million by 2050. 1 According to the dementia in India 2020 report, an estimated 5.3 million Indians aged more than 60 years had dementia in 2020, and this number is projected to exceed 14 million by 2050. 2 Relationship of low serum 25 (OH) Vitamin D and dementia – A cross-sectional observational study from a neurology teaching hospital in East India: Relationship of low serum 25 (OH) Vitamin D and dementia in East India Amar Kumar Misra 1 , Annesh Bhattacharjee 2 , Joydeep Mukherjee 3 , Sanjay Kumar 4 , Bijendra Mohanty 5 1 Professor and Head, 2,5 Senior Resident, 3 Assistant Professor, Department of Neuromedicine, Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, West Bengal, 4 Professor, Department of Neurology, Patna Medical College, Patna, Bihar, India Submission: 02-10-2022 Revision: 23-10-2022 Publication: 01-12-2022 Address for Correspondence: Dr. Joydeep Mukherjee, Assistant Professor, Department of Neuromedicine, Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata - 700 014, West Bengal, India. Mobile: +91-9836510228. E-mail: joydeepdoc@gmail.com Background: In view of the rapidly growing number of aged population with dementia in India, widespread hypovitaminosis D in the elderly individual, high frequency of dementia of unknown etiology, many studies showing a defnite role of Vitamin D in dementia as well as some of the literature showing inconsistent results and reverse causality of hypovitaminosis D in dementia, we planned to investigate the relation between low vitamin D and risk of dementia. Aims and Objective: The aim of the current study was to fnd out any relationship of Vitamin D with dementia. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional observational study was performed at a neurology-teaching hospital, Kolkata, India. Ethical clearance was obtained from the hospital ethics committee. A total of ffty adults completed interviews on a semi-structured questionnaire. In addition, general medical and neurological examination and detailed cognitive assessment, including MMSE, were carried out after taking written consent. All individuals with dementia, and age-gender-matched healthy volunteers provided blood samples for routine and relevant biochemical examination, including the estimation of serum 25(OH) Vitamin D by Chemiluminescence Immuno Assay (CLIA). In addition, appropriate statistical methods were applied to analyse the results. Results: Overall, ninety percent of participants had low serum 25(OH)Vitamin D, defned as 25(OH)D < 20mg/ml. Hypovitaminosis D was associated with early and late-stage dementia and was statistically signifcant. Only fve individuals were found to have suffcient 25 (OH) Vitamin D. Conclusion: The mean vitamin D level of demented patients was signifcantly lower compared to the control population. Our observations provide an association between Vitamin D defciency and dementia and provides a background of longitudinal prospective study in future to show cause and effect relationship between dementia and hypovitaminosis D. Key words: Dementia/major neurocognitive disorder; 25 (OH) Vitamin D; Mini-Mental State Examination; Cross-sectional study ORIGINAL ARTICLE ASIAN JOURNAL OF MEDICAL SCIENCES Access this article online Website: http://nepjol.info/index.php/AJMS DOI: 10.3126/ajms.v13i12.48716 E-ISSN: 2091-0576 P-ISSN: 2467-9100 Copyright (c) 2022 Asian Journal of Medical Sciences This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. ABSTRACT