The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency among female college students at Qatar University

countries as documented by many studies.1-4 Vitamin D is a fat-soluble steroid hormone that is crucial for many tissues and organs in the body for instance, skin, heart, kidney, and muscles. Vitamin D deficiency has been shown to play a role in almost every major disease, including: osteoporosis, rickets, and osteopenia, several types of cancer (including breast, prostate, and colon), heart disease, obesity, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, infertility and postmenaupousal syndrome (PMS), Parkinson’s, depression, Alzheimer’s, and chronic fatigue syndrome.5 Factors that contribute to the deficiency of vitamin D are: limited exposure to sunlight, low dietary intake of foods that contain vitamin D, overdressed, high altitude and cold countries, and skin color.5 I