Give children vitamin D daily, urges Scotland’s senior doctor

By ANDREW WHITAKER
Published on Saturday 4 February 2012 00:59

SCOTLAND’S chief medical officer has issued a directive that pregnant women and babies should be taking daily vitamin D drops to protect against illness and bone disease.

Sir Harry Burns has written to Scotland’s health professionals asking them to promote a campaign to encourage parents to ensure that children aged six months to five years take daily vitamin D drops.

The letter from the chief medical officer came as a leading baby charity, Tommy’s, warned that pregnant women not taking “enough vitamin D to protect their baby from deficiency” could risk the onset of rickets – a disease that causes a softening of the bones in young children and is widely known as a childhood disease in developing countries.

Linda Suttill, a midwife at Tommy’s, said: “Pregnant women must make sure they have enough vitamin D to protect their baby from deficiency, which can cause rickets.”

Meanwhile, Sir Harry talked about the “risk of vitamin D deficiency”, as he called on medics to take steps to make sure that babies and pregnant mothers get “access to these important daily supplements”.

Sir Harry said: “My colleagues and I are writing a joint letter to health professionals to increase awareness of this important issue, highlighting the fact there are steps that people who may be at risk of vitamin D deficiency, such as pregnant women, infants and young children, can take to avoid low levels.

“This is a restatement of advice I sent to health professionals in Scotland last year and contains important information about prescribing and recommending vitamin D supplements to those groups of the population at risk of vitamin D deficiency. Health professionals can make a significant difference to people’s health by making those at risk aware of how important it is to make sure they get enough vitamin D, and how they can get access to these important daily supplements.”

The chief medical officer also said a lack of sunshine and a diet low in oily fish are thought to be the main factors in Scots having a low level of the vitamin.

Scottish Labour health spokesman Dr Richard Simpson, a former GP, said that Sir Harry’s intervention over Vitamin D was a “very welcome move.”

He said: “Vitamin deficiency plays a great part in diseases that affect mothers and babies in Scotland and also accounts for the high levels of multiple sclerosis that we have in Scotland.

“This is an excellent initiative from the chief medical officer and will be seen as a very welcome move by health professionals across Scotland.”

THE FACTS

Vitamin D is found in a small number of foods:

– oily fish, such as salmon and sardines

– eggs

– fortified fat spreads

– fortified breakfast cereals

– powdered milk

However, most of our vitamin D comes from sunlight on our skin. It helps protect against chronic diseases such as cancer, type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and autoimmune diseases.

Vitamin D deficiency is associated with low bone mass, osteoporosis, poor muscle strength, chronic conditions, such as autoimmune disease and some forms of cancer, and it can also lead to rickets.

Comments

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AndrewJohnYounger

Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 03:38 PM

Pete1959 has the right idea, instead of leaving Scotland dim, shine a light on it and make that a dose 300nm approximate. Install the units in Schools to supplement the existing lighting system and what about all those sunbeds the councils bought and probable thrown out. Those sunbeds could be fitted out with specific spectrum lamps treating anything from Vit D, to skin complaints, etc. Pop into the local health board clinic and on a conveyor belt get your 15 minutes worth. Maybe that be too efficient for clinical these days? These folk that what to nanny us all should find another island. There is enough garbarge in our food already - worthless cereal is fortified is that not enough of a hint. Why eat worthless food - it tastes nice, aye foolish. Back to advertisements, I must consume, I must consume. It tastes nice, makes me belong, therefore its healthy, the advert says so. THINK!

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Pete1959

Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 08:29 AM

You cannot make vitamin d from sunshine when the sun is low in the sky (all day winter, mornings and afternoons), this is because the chemical reaction that starts the transformation of 7-dehydrocholesterol into vitamin d requires ultraviolet light (UVB) at wavelengths between 270 and 300 nm (peak production 295 and 297 nm) and this is easily absorbed by the atmosphere. So between October and April (approx) you will make no vitamin d at all from sunlight (assuming you do not holiday in Africa) Vitamin d production then increased peaking in June. Vitamin d in the blood has a half life of about 10 to 20 days, so after the summer peak the blood levels drop quickly. Rainy Mays and AugustSeptembers will make deficiency much worse.

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Pete1959

Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 08:19 AM

Charles Linskaill Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 01:12 AM If you drink too much or too little water you die. Vitamin D3 based rat poison contains so much vitamin d that it causes hypercalcemia, the supplements contains very little and therefore obviously do not. A reasonable supplement is 5000IU (125 micrograms) but rat poison contains 1,000,000 microgramsL. Also remember that rats are nocturnal and much smaller than people. In water terms if the supplement was a pint of water a litre of rat poison is 1000 gallons. However, if you object to the supplement go get a narrow band UVB sunlamp as used for reptiles, you will make much more vitamin d than you would get from the supplement.

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eelisabeth

Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 05:24 AM

allymax, what on earth has milk with the need for vitamin.D to do? It doesn´t matter if you fortifie the milk with small amount of D, it still wont be enough to prevent any of the wellknown illnesses associated with vitamin-D deficiency.

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allymax

Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 04:43 AM

Give oor kids back their milk that Thatcher-the-milk-snatcher took away.

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eelisabeth

Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 03:55 AM

What terrible nonsence in comments1-3! Are you payed off by Big Pharma? Vitamin-D deficiency is a horrible fact and we all are responsible to do something about it. Vitamin-D is essential! In all my years as a physician, I never ever saw one single patient with vitamin-D toxicity!

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Handsome Scotsman

Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 02:10 AM

Lack of sunshine my backside. Arbroath gets like 5 minutes less sunshine per year than Aberystwyth. These quacks are just making up facts to suit their stories.

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Charles Linskaill

Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 01:19 AM

Signs of vitamin D toxicity are high urine and blood calcium. The first sign of vitamin D toxicity is hypercalcuria (excess calcium in the urine) followed by hypercalcemia (high blood calcium). The following symptoms may present: •nausea •vomiting •poor appetite •constipation (possibly alternating with diarrhea) •weakness •weight loss •tingling sensations in the mouth •confusion •heart rhythm abnormalities

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1

Charles Linskaill

Saturday, February 4, 2012 at 01:12 AM

Too Much Vitamin D is Rat Poison, Why on Earth would you want to give our Children That!

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