It is currently estimated that about 50% of the global population is affected either by vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency. Vitamin D levels are not only important for bone health, but low levels of vitamin D are associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, autoimmunity, and increased mortality. In a clinical setting vitamin D levels are mostly determined by immunochemical assays. These methods are inexpensive, but often provide inaccurate results because different vitamin D forms that are present in the human body cannot be distinguished. The institute HEALTH has developed an analytical method using high resolution mass spectrometry that can accurately determine the most important forms of vitamin D. This is essential for clinical research but can also help to validate immunochemical routine assays.
This method was published now as scientific publication in the journal "Analytical Methods":
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2015/ay/c5ay01583a#!divAbstract
Reingard Raml, Maria Ratzer, Barbara Obermayer-Pietsch, Anton Mautner, Thomas R. Pieber, Frank M. Sinner, Christoph Magnes. Quantifying vitamin D and its metabolites by LC/Orbitrap MSAnalytical Methods, 2015, 7, 8961 – 8966.