Pitt Pediatrics congratulates Juhi Kumar, MD, MPH, for her recent publication in Pediatric Nephrology, analyzing the associations between Vitamin D and blood pressure in pediatric patients with chronic kidney disease. 
Kumar is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics in our Division of Nephrology. Other authors on the study include researchers from across the country, including Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Seattle Children’s Hospital, among others.
The research, titled, “Vitamin D and its associations with blood pressure in the Chronic Kidney Disease in Children (CKiD) cohort,” aimed to close the knowledge gap in regarding the associations between Vitamin D blood pressure in chronic kidney disease in pediatric patients.
Previous research has shown that Vitamin D can have a significant effect on mechanisms that regulate blood pressure (BP). However, further observational studies have shown opposite effects among children and adults in the relationship between Vitamin D and BP. Kumar and her co-authors therefore aimed to clarify the specific effect on pediatric CKiD.
Of the 370 participants that contributed nearly 1,000 in-person clinic visits, the research team employed linear mixed-effects models to evaluate associations among the cohort. Researchers quickly found that for every 10 ng/ml lower Vitamin D, BP was 1.0% higher, as well as a lack of association for within-person longitudinal changes.
Ultimately, Kumar and her team concluded that low Vitamin D levels are associated with a higher systolic BP in pediatric CKiD. This implies that Vitamin D supplementation to normal levels could be an effective part of treatment in optimizing BP in these particular high-risk patients.
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