Conventional medicine catches up with vitamin D

[MorningGlow]

Published in the journal Pediatrics.

Children need more vitamin D, researchers say
October 26, 2009
Los Angeles Times

Like adults, children require vitamin D -- it's one of those often-ignored fundamentals. But how much? The vitamin is crucial for, among other things, bone development, so no one wants to skimp. But not many experts want to go overboard either.

Doctors and researchers don't all agree on the proper amount kids should get, but some seem fairly certain that many aren't getting enough.

Using the National Health and Nutrition Survey, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston and elsewhere analyzed blood levels of vitamin D in about 5,000 children -- ages 1 to 11 -- from 2001 through 2006.

About 20% of kids had levels lower than those recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics -- 50 nanomoles per liter of blood (or 20 nanograms per milliliter). A dramatically higher percentage of kids had levels lower than the 75 nmol/L recommended by some researchers.

The problem was especially pronounced among Hispanic and black children. People with darker skin don't synthesize the vitamin as easily as those with lighter skin.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/10/children-need-more-vitamin-d-researchers-say.html

Note: This subject is near and dear to my heart because my 5 YO has the same severe D deficiency as I and my mom do. But his pediatrician laughed it off as "the newest fad" and didn't want to give him any supplements. Meanwhile, he caught every illness that passed through his school last year and spent more days out sick than in class. I persisted and the pediatrician relented and told me to give him a very small amount of D2 (even though D3 is more effective and is absorbed better); instead, I gave him a daily 500mg supplement. When I spoke to my holistic m.d., who is a family doctor, she told me to give him FOUR times what I had been giving him if I hoped to get his D level into the normal range.

I understand that doctors prefer to be conservative and treat all "new" trends with caution, but if she had paid any attention to the emerging research, we could have gotten him on D far sooner than we did, and he wouldn't have suffered for so long. The mama bear in me says :grr:.

[gateley]

1. Physicians aren't taught a whole lot about vitamins in med school. If there was a drug that

addressed your son's condition, his doctor wouldn't have been laughing but would have been writing him a prescription. :grr:

[nightrain]

3. true enough... there are vast areas that med school education does not address...

[county worker]

2. I once read that 15 minutes in the sunshine with exposed hands and arms is enough to get the needed

vitamin D each day. If that is so why is this such a problem now a days? I don't ever remember a time where we discussed not getting enough vitamin D before. I think that we are remaining inside too much maybe.

[nightrain]

4. ? too much screen time??

[dflprincess]

5. Too much sun screen

There was an item on the news a couple years or so ago that pediatricians were seeing cases of rickets - something that had become so rare that some of the younger ones didn't know what they were seeing. After some dithering it was decided that the problem was being caused by kids being protected from the sun too much and that kids need a little (not much like the other poster said) but some unprotected time in the sun.

[BonnieJW]

9. We were all given codliver oil when we were children.

No vitamin D deficiencies. Kids aren't given that anymore.

[mopinko]

11. at the equator, maybe

up here in the midwest, no. vit d deficiencies are rampant here, even among people who are outside a lot.

[MorningGlow]

12. Some people have a problem absorbing D from sunlight (and from food too)

I think this type of problem runs in my family.

[Celebration]

17. there has been a lot more research

Used to be we thought Vitamin D was just to avoid rickets. Now we know it is much, much more.

[Warpy]

6. Parents are paranoid about booting the kids outside

the way our parents booted us outside in the 50s. They're terrified of pedophiles and worse and the news media have made it seem that a man with a new litter of puppies to show the kiddies is hiding behind every tree.

Without all that time in the sunshine, the kiddies just aren't making the vitamin D they need.

The RDA levels need to go up for kids just because they're being kept indoors so much of the time.

[LeftishBrit]

7. Glad he's finally getting the vitamin D that he needs!

I've been prescribed vitamin D and calcium for over 10 years, because I have risk factors for osteoporosis.

Vitamins are not a cure-all, but much more important than was thought at one time. I think doctors in the UK are probably more into nutrition than those in the USA.

[hedgehog]

8. I have to laugh at the assumption that light skinned people get plenty

of vitamin D. I'm red headed, blue haired Irish, and there seems to be lupus spectrum illnesses in the family. I treat the sun the same way a vampire does.

[trotsky]

10. Misleading editorialized headline in your OP.

A more accurate restatement would be "Conventional medicine confirms value of Vitamin D"

Because "researchers at Children's Hospital Boston" and "the American Academy of Pediatrics" are part of "conventional medicine."

[MorningGlow]

13. Lighten up, Trotsky

This isn't LBN.

[trotsky]

14. Nope, but you don't need to bash "conventional" medicine either. n/t

[MorningGlow]

15. After my experiences? Yes I bloody well do.

Now let's not turn this thread into an OT flamewar. Can we stick to the vitamin D subject please?

[trotsky]

16. You lit and threw the match,

and you whine about a flamewar? :eyes: