Serum vitamin E levels in children with human immunodeficiency virus infection in Lagos Nigeria

Background Vitamin E supplementation in many adult populations has been found to reduce the impact of oxidative stress from chronic diseases which include HIV infection.

With paucity of data among the pediatric population, this study was conducted to determine the mean serum vitamin E levels and its associations with the immunologic status, the nutritional status and the use of highly active antiretroviral drugs (HAART) in children with HIV aged 6 weeks to 13 years.

Methods Seventy HIV-infected children (35 HIV-infected on HAART, 35 HIV-infected HAART-naïve) and seventy age- and sex-matched HIV-uninfected children were recruited to the study.

Social class, anthropometric measures, results of serum vitamin E (using HPLC), CD4 counts, and cholesterol levels were inputted into a pretested questionnaire.

Results The median (IQR) serum vitamin E levels among the children with HIV was 2.54 (1.55–5.27) μmol/L which was higher than the controls 1.87 (1.63–2.88) μmol/L, p  = 0.03.

There was a positive correlation between serum vitamin E levels and immunological status using CD4% ( r  =  + 0.141, p  = 0.53) and CD4 counts ( r  =  + 0.017, p  = 0.91) among the children with HIV.

There was no significant association between serum vitamin E levels and nutritional status.

The vitamin E levels were higher in the HAART-exposed children compared to the HAART-naïve children but the difference was not significant p  = 0.480 and p  = 0.485 respectively.

Conclusion The children with HIV had higher serum vitamin E levels.

Further research is needed to investigate possible reasons and implications for this including the role of the vitamin E carrier protein in HIV management.