Implementation of Vitamin D Screening and Planned Intervention of Supplementation for Deficient Collegiate Athletes of the Rio Grande Valley

In the past decade, studies on vitamin D levels and relationships to orthopaedic patients have increased exponentially worldwide. Journals have established risk factors, proper assessment of vitamin D levels, supplementation standards, and dependent variables that effect prevalence.1 More specifically, many vitamin D studies in the field of orthopaedics and sports medicine have been conducted by analyzing NFL teams and NCAA Division I athletes and dividing the cohorts into player parameters such as age, BMI, race, team position, and supplement type. The results of these studies concluded that there is a large prevalence of vitamin D deficiency amongst athletes and an even higher abnormality of serum vitamin D levels in races with darker skin tones.3 Studies also have been conducted on the benefits of vitamin D and calcium supplementation to prevent over-use injuries like stress fractures.4 An example would be a study showing a 20% lower incidence of stress fractures in navy recruits in a 24-month period.5 But despite such a high level of interest in analyses of vitamin D in athletes, the prevalence of hypovitaminosis D and its influence in overuse injuries like stress fractures within the population of collegiate athletes in the Rio Grande Valley has not yet been investigated