Children & Women Physicians group says children need 400 IUs of vitamin D a day
By Jimmy Downs
Oct 14, 2008 - 9:38:45 AM
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Tuesday October 14, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) -- The nation’s top physicians organization says it now
recommends that children from newborns to teens should double their intake of
vitamin D because evidence has suggested that the current recommended dose is
too low to prevent some health conditions that would otherwise be presentable
at high intake.
The daily intake of vitamin D is currently recommended by
the government at 200 international units for infants, children and adults age
under 50 years. For adults between 50 and 70, the current recommendation is 400
IUs and for adults older than 70, 600 IUs per day is recommended.
The new recommendations may help change the landscape of
vitamin D deficiency in children.
One
study led by Dr. Catherine Gordon, director of the bone health program at
Children's Hospital in Boston and colleagues and published in the June issue of
the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found 12 percent of the
youngest children in the U.S. are deficient in vitamin D and another 28 percent
are at risk for vitamin D deficiency.
Vitamin D can be found in a small number of foods mostly
in oily fish such as salmon and fortified foods such as milk and orange
juice.
Vitamin D supplements are also a
major source of this vitamin.
The best source is sunshine. The information given in the
scientific community is confusing or even misleading. One argument is that
people need to protect their skin from UV rays to avoid skin cancer. But researchers
have warned that vitamin D deficiency
can lead to more serious types of cancer.
But vitamin D expertshave complained for long that the
recommended intake is too low.
Studies
have shown low vitamin D in the blood were linked with an array of serious
diseases such as heart disease, cancer, rheumatic disease, metabolic syndrome, pre-eclampsia, multiple sclerosis and diabetes
among others.
The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends
children including breast-fed infants should get 400 IUs a day.
Physicians have been saying all along that
exposure of both hands and the face to sunshine for 10 to 15 minutes each day will
lead to generation of sufficient vitamin D.
People with dark skin and people who live in the north
could not be able to get enough vitamin D through exposure of vitamin D.
People who are prone to becoming vitamin D
deficient also include elderly people, those with inflammatory bowel disease,
obesity, and infants exclusively breastfed.
Still some researchers do not think the new
recommendation is adequate enough. Adrian Gombart, a vitamin D researcher at
Oregon State University, was cited by theapssoatepress as saying that 400 IUS
is "probably not enough".
He was cited as saying many vitamin D experts believe
that a dose between 800 and 1,000 IUs daily would be needed to help fight many
diseases.
Observational studies
suggested taking 1500 IU per day could help reduce breast cancer by 75 percent.
A study led by
Dr. Ghada
E.-Hajj Fuleihan of the American University of Beirut in Lebanon and recently published in the Journal of
Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism showed school children can use up to
2,000 IU per day without any side effect.
News media reports that the Institute of Medicine, a
government advisory group that dictates many standards and recommendations is
considering a change in its recommendation because research has showed the old
one is no longer adequate.
The new vitamin D recommendations were scheduled to be
released Monday at an academy conference in Boston. They will also be published
in the November 2008 issue of the academy’s journal, Pediatrics.
Here are the AAP's recommendations cited by healthday.com
Infants who are breast-fed or partially breast-fed receive 400 IU a day of
vitamin D in supplements, beginning in the first few days of life. Many mothers
are deficient in the vitamin and pass this on to their newborns.
Supplementation should be continued unless the infant starts taking at least
one quart a day of vitamin D-fortified formula or whole milk, although whole
milk should not be introduced until the child has turned 1. Many children,
including those with a family history of obesity, should only be drinking
low-fat milk. On-breast-fed children and older children should also receive a
vitamin D supplement of 400 IU/day. Children at increased risk of vitamin D
deficiency (for example, those taking anti-seizure medications) may need higher
doses, but this should only be done in consultation with a health-care
professional.
A health observer pointed out that there is no reason why
a person should drink milk to get vitamin D. Fortified milk is not the only
source for vitamin D and according to some nutritionists, milk, particularly
the milk produced in the U.S. is not a good food in the first place.