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Updated: Sep 22, 2025
Noninvasive Sampling of Mucosal Lining Fluid for the Quantification of In Vivo Upper Airway Immune-mediator Levels
Published on: August 7, 2017
Vitamin D supplementation and lower respiratory tract infection in infants: a nested case-control study
Miao Hong1, Ting Xiong1, Junmei Huang1,2
1Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, Hubei Key Laboratory of Food Nutrition and Safety and the Ministry of Education (MOE) Key Laboratory of Environment and Health, School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 13 Hangkong Road, Wuhan, 430030, China.
Purpose:
To assess the association between vitamin D (VD) supplementation and the risk of lower respiratory tract infection (LRTI) among infants.
Methods:
This is a nested case-control study from an ongoing prospective birth cohort in Wuhan from 2013. Cases were subjects free of neonatal pneumonia but later developed LRTI during infancy, who were matched with five randomly selected controls by infant sex, birth year, and birth season. We included 190 cases and 950 controls in the final analysis. The primary outcome was the first LRTI incident and the exposure was VD supplementation from birth to the index endpoint. The association between VD supplementation and LRTI risk was assessed using the Cox proportional-hazards regression model.
Results:
Infants taking supplements had a 59% relative reduction in the hazard ratio of LRTI (HR = 0.41; 95% CI 0.26, 0.64) compared to those not supplemented. There was a linear relationship between LRTI risk and VD supplementation within range of 0-603 IU/day: for each 100 IU per day increment in VD supplementation, infants experienced a 21% lower risk of developing LRTI (adjusted HR: 0.79; 95% CI 0.71, 0.89). The linear relationship was stably observed in the sensitivity analyses as well.
Conclusions:
VD supplementation was associated with the reduced risk of LRTI throughout infancy, and the optimal supplementation dose for infants may be beyond the current recommendation.
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