Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Correspondence to: Assoc. Vitamin D is involved in many different functions in the human body. Despite the well-known benefits of vitamin D and increasing trends of testing and supplementation, there is still a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency worldwide, present in the general but also in the highly-active population such as athletes and dancers.
Dancers are at a higher risk of vitamin D deficiency due to their long working hours spent indoors, without exposure to sunlight. The high level of workload and physical demands also put dancers at a high risk of injuries. The aim of this review was to systematically analyze the existing evidence on the association of vitamin D serum level and supplementation and injuries in dancers. Medline, Scopus, SportDiscus and Web of Science were searched to identify the available peer-reviewed articles.
Five articles met the inclusion criteria two interventional and three observational studies , three of which additionally investigated the relationship between vitamin D and muscle function. The reported results on positive influence of vitamin D serum level or vitamin D supplementation effect on reduced injury occurrence and enhanced muscular function in adolescent and elite professional ballet dancers are promising but the evidence is limited due to a low number of studies, small samples, and methodological limitations.
Vitamin D is a multifunctional prohormone involved in numerous processes in the human body 1. The role of vitamin D in calcium and phosphate intestinal absorption, maintenance of calcium concentration in blood and its renal reabsorption is long known, and its indispensable role in bone health and prevention of diseases such as rickets, osteomalacia, and osteoporosis is undisputed 2 , 3.
In addition to its bone-related function, a growing body of evidence for the role of vitamin D in the function of the cardiovascular and endocrine systems, respiratory function, immunity, mental health, prevention of metabolic disorders and malignant diseases has been accumulating in the last couple of decades 1 , 3.
