Young Children Lack Vitamin D

Young children have high rates of vitamin D deficiency, which don't show serious symptoms, but lead to health complications later in life.

Researchers from Children's Hospital Boston examined 380 children aged from 8 to 24 months and found that 2 out of 5 children have vitamin D level in blood lower than the optimal level. 40% of those children have serious levels of low vitamin D dficiency, which is unacceptable because lack of vitamins can be easily fulfilled.

Researchers have also found that vitamin D deficiency is very frequent among overweight children. Vitamin dissolves into fat, leading to deficiency even if there is a proper amount of vitamins taken.

The problem is that vitamin D deficiency is a 'silent disease'. There are no serious symptoms alerting the deficiency, and most parents can simply be unaware of the problem. However, later in life vitamin D deficiency leads to numerous diseases, such as bone weakness, immune system weakness, diabetes, artery disease, kidney disease, and cancer. The most common early symptoms of vitamin D deficiency are bowed legs and tiredness.

The figures of the study show how silent vitamin D deficiency is and how surprising it can be when other disease come later in life.

Another study in 2004 by the same researchers examined vitamin D levels in teenagers and found that teenagers also experience lack of vitamin D. However, sun exposure appeared to be the key in fixing the deficiency among teenagers. In younger children sun exposure doesn't really work, because most of parents simply cover younger children and don't let solar rays to touch their skin.

Research suggests that vitamin D deficiency can be treated and it's important to follow a therapy. Children must drink fortified milk, vitamin drops, be exposed to sun rays during the optimal hours recommended by pediatricians, and maintain healthy weight. It is also known that breast milk lacks vitamin D, although breast milk is a very healthy food for infants. Therefore; breast-fed infants must also be given additional doses of vitamin D or other necessary vitamins.