McCabe, Paul S.Pye, Stephen R.Mc Beth, JohnLee, David M.Tajar, AbdelouahidBartfai, GyorgyBoonen, StevenBouillon, RogerCasanueva Freijo, FelipeFinn, Joseph D.Forti, GianniGiwercman, AleksanderHuhtaniemi, Ilpo T.Kula, KrzysztofPendleton, NeilPunab, MargusVanderschueren, DirkWu, Frederick C.O’Neill, Terence W.EMAS Study Group2020-06-102020-06-102016McCabe, P.S., Pye, S.R., Beth, J.M. et al. Low vitamin D and the risk of developing chronic widespread pain: results from the European male ageing study. BMC Musculoskelet Disord 17, 32 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12891-016-0881-6http://hdl.handle.net/10347/22927Background The association between low levels of vitamin D and the occurrence of chronic widespread pain (CWP) remains unclear. The aim of our analysis was to determine the relationship between low vitamin D levels and the risk of developing CWP in a population sample of middle age and elderly men. Methods Three thousand three hundred sixty nine men aged 40–79 were recruited from 8 European centres for a longitudinal study of male ageing, the European Male Ageing Study. At baseline participants underwent assessment of lifestyle, health factors, physical characteristics and gave a fasting blood sample. The occurrence of pain was assessed at baseline and follow up (a mean of 4.3 years later) by shading painful sites on a body manikin. The presence of CWP was determined using the ACR criteria for fibromyalgia. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-(OH) D) was assessed by radioimmunoassay. Logistic regression was used to determine the relationship between baseline vitamin D levels and the new occurrence of CWP. Results Two thousand three hundred thirteen men, mean age 58.8 years (SD = 10.6), had complete pain and vitamin data available and contributed to this analysis. 151 (6.5 %) developed new CWP at follow up and 577 (24.9 %) were pain free at both time points, the comparator group. After adjustment for age and centre, physical performance and number of comorbidities, compared to those in upper quintile of 25-(OH) D ( ≥36.3 ng/mL), those in the lowest quintile (<15.6 ng/mL) were more likely to develop CWP (Odds Ratio [OR] = 1.93; 95 % CI = 1.0-3.6). Further adjustment for BMI (OR = 1.67; 95 % CI = 0.93-3.02) or depression (OR = 1.77; 95 % CI = 0.98-3.21), however rendered the association non-significant. Conclusions Low vitamin D is linked with the new occurrence of CWP, although this may be explained by underlying adverse health factors, particularly obesity and depression.eng© 2016 McCabe et al. Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise statedhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Chronic Widespread painChronic painVitamin DEpidemiologyObesityDepressionjournal article10.1186/s12891-016-0881-61471-2474open access