A study in the Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal tested 7,924 patients on their first consultation at a Dubai day-surgery hospital and found an average vitamin D level of 19.9 ng/mL. By the study’s cutoff of 30 ng/mL, 85.4 percent were deficient, and 17.5 percent sat at or below 10 ng/mL. The average patient was 37, and 82 percent were under 46.

One hospital is not a random sample of a city, and that data comes from 2012 to 2014. A 2025 systematic review of 35 UAE studies covering 28,260 apparently healthy participants gives a wider view. Its pooled average for adults was 17.63 ng/mL, under the 20 ng/mL line several of the included studies used for deficiency. The methods differ and the eras differ. The direction does not.

Plenty of Sun, Very Little of It on Skin

Skin makes vitamin D when ultraviolet B light reaches it, which takes bare skin, the right hour, and enough time. Daily life in Dubai is arranged, quite sensibly, around avoiding exactly that.

  • Indoor days: The air-conditioned car, the parking garage, the lift, and an office floor in DIFC or Business Bay can add up to a full working day without direct sun on skin.
  • Midday avoidance: When summer afternoons climb past 40 degrees, few people linger outside during the hours when ultraviolet B is strongest.
  • After-dark outdoor time: An evening walk in Safa Park feels like time outside, but there is no ultraviolet B to speak of once the sun is down.
  • Skin and clothing: Sunscreen, clothing that covers most of the skin, and darker skin tones that need longer exposure all reduce how much the skin makes.
  • Diet: Oily fish is among the few rich food sources, and plenty of diets include very little of it.

Each factor is ordinary on its own, and together they explain how a sunny city produces low levels.

The 2025 review also notes an Abu Dhabi study of university students in which levels ran lower in summer than in winter, the reverse of what the calendar suggests. Indoor padel courts and air-conditioned gyms keep people active through the hottest months while keeping them out of the light. The Dubai hospital study found low levels in every age group, in both sexes, and in Emiratis and expatriates alike, so this is a city-wide pattern, not one group’s habit. Children are part of it too: the review found severe deficiency in infants and children, though only a small number of studies covered them.

What Low Levels Do to Bone Over Time

Vitamin D lets the gut absorb calcium and phosphate, the raw material of bone. When levels stay low, the body protects the calcium in its blood by drawing on the skeleton instead.

Bone mass builds through adolescence and early adulthood, peaks, then slowly declines, so years of low levels in the twenties and thirties contribute to a deficit that can stay silent for decades. In adults, severe deficiency can soften bone, a condition called osteomalacia, and long-term shortfalls add to the thinning behind osteoporosis. The first sign is frequently a fracture from a slip that a stronger skeleton would have shrugged off, which is why osteoporosis management is no longer a conversation reserved for people in their sixties.

Symptoms That Get Blamed on Something Else

Deficiency can go years without a single symptom, which is how numbers like these sit beside people who feel perfectly well. When symptoms do appear, they are easy to explain away.

A deep ache in the shins, hips, or lower back. Thighs that tire early on a flight of stairs. Fatigue filed under work. Every one of these has other causes, so none proves a vitamin D problem, but an ache that has lasted weeks deserves a blood test and an examination, not another round of painkillers. If that describes the last month, arrange a check and let someone work out whether bone, muscle, or something else is behind it.

Two Measurements, Two Different Questions

People often treat a vitamin D result and a bone density result as the same thing, and they answer different questions. The blood test, which measures 25-hydroxyvitamin D, shows the supply. A DEXA scan shows what the bone actually holds, measuring mineral density at the hip and spine, and it is the result that tells a doctor how close someone is to osteoporosis.

The two can disagree. A low vitamin D level with normal bone density is the moment to correct the supply before the bone pays for it. Normal vitamin D with low bone density points somewhere else, to hormones, medication, or family history.

Test First, Then Treat

Treatment follows the number. Vitamin D is fat soluble, so the body stores what it does not use instead of flushing it out, which makes guessing with a very high-strength product a poor idea. Dose, duration, and when to retest are decisions for a clinician who has seen the result.

A test makes particular sense after a fracture from a minor fall, with a family history of osteoporosis, or with a job that keeps someone indoors from sunrise to sunset. A normal result is worth having too, because it takes one worry off the list.

Low vitamin D is correctable, and it is far easier to correct before bone has thinned than after. Our orthopedic specialists review bone health at Westminster Multispecialty Clinic in Dubai Healthcare City, and a first conversation can start with nothing more than the question of when you were last tested. Reach out when that question comes up.