Posted on 02/24/2011 7:35:20 AM PST by decimon
February 24, 2011 ─ (BRONX, NY) ─ A study of more than 3,000 children shows that low vitamin D levels are associated with increased likelihood that children will develop allergies, according to a paper published in the February 17 online edition of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University headed the study.
Researchers looked at the serum vitamin D levels in blood collected in 2005-2006 from a nationally representative sample of more than 3,100 children and adolescents and 3,400 adults. The samples are derived from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a program of studies designed to assess the health and nutritional status of adults and children in the United States. The survey is unique in that it combines interviews, physical examinations and laboratory studies. One of the blood tests assessed was sensitivity to 17 different allergens by measuring levels of Immunoglobulin E (IgE), a protein made when the immune system responds to allergens.
When the resulting data was analyzed by Einstein researchers, no association between vitamin D levels and allergies was observed in adults. But for children and adolescents, low vitamin D levels correlated with sensitivity to 11 of the 17 allergens tested, including both environmental allergens (e.g., ragweed, oak, dog, cockroach) and food allergens (e.g., peanuts). For example, children who had vitamin D deficiency (defined as less than 15 nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter of blood), were 2.4 times as likely to have a peanut allergy than were children with sufficient levels of vitamin D (more than 30 nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter of blood).
The research shows only an association and does not prove that vitamin D deficiency causes allergies in children, cautioned Michal Melamed, M.D., M.H.S., assistant professor of medicine and of epidemiology & population health at Einstein and senior author of the study. Nevertheless, she said, children should certainly consume adequate amounts of the vitamin. "The latest dietary recommendations calling for children to take in 600 IU of vitamin D daily should keep them from becoming vitamin-D deficient," she said.
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The title of the paper is "Vitamin D levels and food and environmental allergies in the United States: Results from NHANES 2005-2006."
About Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University
Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University is one of the nation's premier centers for research, medical education and clinical investigation. During the 2009-2010 academic year, Einstein is home to 722 M.D. students, 243 Ph.D. students, 128 students in the combined M.D./Ph.D. program, and approximately 350 postdoctoral research fellows. The College of Medicine has 2,775 fulltime faculty members located on the main campus and at its clinical affiliates. In 2009, Einstein received more than $155 million in support from the NIH. This includes the funding of major research centers at Einstein in diabetes, cancer, liver disease, and AIDS. Other areas where the College of Medicine is concentrating its efforts include developmental brain research, neuroscience, cardiac disease, and initiatives to reduce and eliminate ethnic and racial health disparities. Through its extensive affiliation network involving five medical centers in the Bronx, Manhattan and Long Island - which includes Montefiore Medical Center, The University Hospital and Academic Medical Center for Einstein - the College of Medicine runs one of the largest post-graduate medical training programs in the United States, offering approximately 150 residency programs to more than 2,500 physicians in training. For more information, please visit www.einstein.yu.edu
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Is it possible that kids with allergies don’t go out as much?
Throw the video games in the trash and put them outside.
Well, Vitamins C and D are sunshine vitamins are they not? Poor kids today can’t really go out and play all day as they could in the past.
The parents of most of today’s children were raised on the myth that sunshine is bad for your health, even in small doses. They’ve also been told that all bacteria is bad for you.
As usual, a repudiation by the medical community of a former certainty, which was to keep children out of the sun and if that was unavoidable, slather a sun blocker over every inch of exposed skin.
In the future, it shouldn’t surprise us to find these lotions will be found to cause skin cancer. That’s the way it goes when “experts” must publish dire studies to keep their paychecks coming.
If milk wasn't good for you, why didGod make boobs that go off automatically when you have a child. To make men happy??
um...how bout trees, grasses, weeds, pets, livestock, dust mites, molds, exposure to other children, smoke, etc. - these would be the things that cause allergies not some study about Vitamin D.
One side effect of two of his asthma and allergy meds is a loss of Vitamin D, along with some other vitamins and minerals. I wonder if they took that into consideration when doing this test.
Still, if after we have spent thousands of dollars on prescription meds and allergy shots just so this kid can get through the day without an asthma attack we find that it is caused by a lack of a super cheap supplement, I think I might cry.
Not vitamin C. Otherwise sailors wouldn't have gotten scurvy.
[ Is it possible that kids with allergies don’t go out as much? ]
Kids who grow up on farms have less allergies statistically, so yes.
My daughter gets itchy eyes for two weeks. In 1965, her pediatrician said (age 2) ...if I start her on meds, she’ll be on them for the rest of her life and it’ll make her more susceptible to new “nature” allergies.
Go back to milk with ALL their meals and a daily vitamin.
We didn't have millions of kids with ADHD either. (Ever heard the phrase..."kids are kids".)
My kids drink milk (raw and organic) at all meals, water in between. I never buy soft drinks and we do not eat out of boxes or cans. We have some type of salad greens at least once a day. Homemade dessert is limited to once per week with Sunday dinner.
Still, my oldest is allergic to just about every household and outdoor allergen there is. His allergies lead to asthma and he has twice landed in the ER because none of his meds could get his breathing back to normal.
I do not know why he suffers so badly from allergies and asthma. He also exhibits ADD like behavior, we homeschool so it won't ever be diagnosed. Let me just say that I have a new appreciation for teachers who want kids on meds to help them focus. The stress that his lack of focus adds to our day is unbelievable. It is beyond the normal absent mindedness of boys his age. Why just him out of 5 children?
Our two year old grandson had low vitamin D levels due to a casein allergy! This was discovered after his doctor spent months advising his mother to fill the child full of whole milk, cream, cheese and yogurt because he was not gaining any weight!
Try avoiding casein. This was discovered several months ago and to date the poor child has gained a mere two pounds.
I frankly thing something else is going on in addition to the casein allergy.
BAM! You never hardly heard of allergies when I was a kid in the 70’s. Now kids got them when neither parent has them and no history in the family. Peanuts come to mind. With kids not getting outside like they used to, this makes sense.
I spent 12 hours a day in the hayfields working without a shirt, wheezing, sneezing and draining. I don’t think vitamin D will prevent symptoms.
If the study was really well-designed, they did tease out the kids who were steroid-dependent from those who weren't.
Still, if after we have spent thousands of dollars on prescription meds and allergy shots just so this kid can get through the day without an asthma attack we find that it is caused by a lack of a super cheap supplement, I think I might cry.
Mmmm, that's not exactly what they're saying. There are probably a number of factors contributing to the development of asthma and allergies. Some people probably have a genetic predisposition to develop them, and then some triggering factor--a bad virus, in some cases--starts the process. The other kids didn't experience that trigger, or have a slightly different genetic mix; who can tell?
Giving the kids mega-doses of Vitamin D, allowing them to be raised with allergies, kicking them outdoors, and other things might have prevented the development of asthma and allergies, but might not have, too. So don't beat yourself up, thinking you could have prevented this by giving the child a lot of D when he was small.
Also, the study is not saying that giving kids Vitamin D is going to make the allergies and asthma go away, either (unfortunately). Once you've got it, you've got it, and minimizing exposure to allergens has to play a role in controlling the disease. But giving some big doses of D now to prevent bone loss from steroids is a good idea. What could it hurt?
Odds favor that the asthma is secondary to allergies. Have you taken him to an allergist? If he gets his skin tested, maybe he can become desensitized with injections of the offending antigens.
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