How Vitamin D Deficiency Affects Children’s Health

Vitamin D is the ‘sunshine vitamin’. It’s known by this nickname because we can get all of our vitamin D needs from exposure to the sun. While this is fine in hot countries, it’s not so great in perpetually drizzling places like the UK. It’s thought that in the winter time, a majority of people in the UK will have a mild vitamin D deficiency. According to new research, this is something that we need to worry about, and this is especially true for children.

A new study, released by the Nationwide Children’s Hospital, has shed light on the impact of vitamin D insufficiency in paediatric patients who have low bone density. Vitamin D deficiency is emerging as a serious problem in the world of paediatrics. A mild degree of vitamin D deficiency, which is known as vitamin D insufficiency, can cause rickets in children. The good news is that it can be treated with increased amount of nutritional vitamin D intake as well as increased exposure to the sun.

The study looked at 85 patients, and found that a worrying 80 percent showed vitamin D insufficiency. It was also true that all of them had a history of bone fragility or underlying chronic medical conditions that put them at a risk of osteoporosis. Osteoporosis has been thought of as just an adult disease, but is now increasingly seen in children and can often originate during childhood.

Vitamin D insufficiency may contribute to low bone mass and it can even make the underlying metabolic bone disease worse if it is not treated. Vitamin D is absolutely essential to the good health of your bones.