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Aim: Highlighting some health consequences of hypovitaminosis D on adult Egyptian population. Methods: Fifty-five apparently healthy volunteers aged from 20 to 40 years were involved in the study. By history and physical examination 40 of them had mild clinical manifestation of negligible medical importance that affect the quality of their life without interfering with their daily activity. All volunteers were subjected to vitamin D and calcium dietary intake history, sun exposure assessment, body mass index (BMI), serum vitamin D and calcium profile, bone mineral density measured by Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), psychometric evaluation by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) score and physical activity evaluation by the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). Results: About 73% of our subjects had hypovitaminosis D (61.8% insufficient and 10.9% deficient). The prevalence was more in the female gender (OR 4.5; p≤ 0.05), older subjects (31-40) age group (OR 4.4; p≤ 0.05), with poor sun exposure (OR 7.8; p≤ 0.05), and low vitamin D and calcium dietary intake (OR 4.6; p≤0.05). Vitamin D deficient group showed the higher prevalence of obesity (45.5%). Osteopenia was detected in seven subjects (14.3%) who had low vitamin D levels. Vitamin D status had a negative correlation (r=-0.653; p=<0.001) with the Beck score, and a positive correlation (r=0.430; p=0.001) with the IPAQ score. Conclusion: Hypovitaminosis D is a frequent condition in the healthy Egyptians that implicates their physical, functional, mental, and emotional health.

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Introduction Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a complex disease linked to immune system activation, vascular damage, associated with increased synthesis, and deposition of extracellular matrix, which contain excessive amounts of structurally normal collagen. Interleukin 23 (IL-23) might play a role in disease development and severity. This study aimed to assess the relationship between serum level of IL-23 and interstitial lung disease in SSc. Patients and methods Thirty patients with SSc together with 30 age-matched and sex-matched healthy volunteers were recruited in this study. Serum IL-23 levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Functionally, lung involvement was assessed by pulmonary function tests and radiologically by chest radiography and high-resolution computed tomography of the lungs. Results Mean serum IL-23 level was significantly highly elevated in SSc patients compared with healthy controls (P<0.005). Patients with elevated IL-23 levels exhibited shorter disease duration (P<0.05). Moreover, mean serum IL-23 level was elevated in diffuse SSc cases compared with limited SSc cases and in cases with pulmonary fibrosis (P<0.05), although they were not associated with other clinical features. Elevated mean serum IL-23 level was significantly higher in mild restrictive cases compared with moderate and severe restrictive cases. As regards highresolution computed tomography, mean serum IL-23 level was statistically highly significantly elevated in cases with ground-glass appearance (P<0.001) compared with others. Conclusion Alterations in serum concentrations of IL-23 support the hypothesis that IL-23 is associated with induction of SSc generally and SSc associated with interstitial lung disease specifically. Presumably, blockage of IL-23 could be used as a potential therapeutic target in early SSc.