Vitamin D Deficiency In Infants And Nursing Mothers s Long-term Disease Risks

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Vitamin D Deficiency In Infants And Nursing Mothers s Long-term

Disease Risks

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081216161058.htm

ScienceDaily (Dec. 29, 2008) - Once believed to be important only for bone

health, vitamin D is now seen as having a critical function in maintaining

the immune system throughout life. The newly recognized disease risks

associated with vitamin D deficiency are clearly documented in a new report.

Vitamin D deficiency is common across populations and particularly among

people with darker skin. Nutritional rickets among nursing infants whose

mothers have insufficient levels of vitamin D is an increasingly common, yet

preventable disorder.

Carol Wagner, MD, , MD, and Bruce Hollis, PhD, from the

Department of Pediatrics, Medical University of South Carolina (ton),

emphasize the need for clinical studies to determine the dose of vitamin D

needed to achieve adequate vitamin D levels in breastfeeding mothers and

their infants without toxicity.

The authors point out that vitamin D is now viewed not simply as a vitamin

with a role in promoting bone health, but as a complex hormone that helps to

regulate immune system function. Long-term vitamin D deficiency has been

linked to immune disorders such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis,

type I diabetes, and cancer.

" Vitamin D is a hormone not a vitamin and it is not just for kids anymore, "

writes Ruth A. Lawrence, MD, Editor-in-Chief of Breastfeeding Medicine, from

the Department of Pediatrics, University of Rochester School of Medicine and

Dentistry, in an accompanying editorial. " Perhaps the most startling

information is that adults are commonly deficit in modern society. Vitamin D

is now recognized as a pivotal hormone in the human immune system, a role

far beyond the prevention of rickets, as pointed out in the article by

Wagner et al in this month's issue of Breastfeeding Medicine. "