Doctors Recommend double vitamin D for children

The Boston Globe reports:

The best-known example of vitamin D deficiency is rickets, a bone-softening disease that can result in bowed legs and fractures, but a burgeoning body of evidence links vitamin D deficiency with an array of serious ailments. New research shows it plays a role in certain cancers, autoimmune diseases, and even diabetes.

That's why today the American Academy of Pediatrics is set to announce it is doubling the amount of vitamin D it recommends for infants, children, and adolescents to 400 IU a day, beginning in the first few days of life.

"I don't know of another vitamin that has effects on multiple tissues like vitamin D," said vitamin D researcher Dr. Catherine Gordon, director of the bone health program at Children's Hospital Boston. "As pediatricians, we're still doing research on health outcomes, (and) the relation between vitamin D deficiency during childhood or adolescence and outcomes later in life like osteoporosis, cancer risk, and risk of developing multiple sclerosis. But there are compelling data in adults suggesting an association."

That growing awareness - along with the historical precedence of safely giving 400 IU per day to children - prompted the American Academy of Pediatrics to change its vitamin D recommendation. Even the new 400 international units dose is "a very conservative recommendation" to prevent rickets and vitamin D deficiency in all children, said Dr. Carol Wagner, a pediatrician at the Medical University of South Carolina and a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Breast-feeding Executive Committee. Breast-fed infants are especially at risk for insufficient vitamin D.

Vitamin D deficiency is more widespread than commonly thought.

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