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Stories for Reprint
Kids' Achy Bones and Vitamin D
By Ferdous Al-Faruque, MARRTC Staff
A recent Michigan study has found that children who have pain in their muscles, bones and joints tend to have low vitamin D.
James Dowd, principal investigator of the study and a rheumatologist at the Michigan Arthritis Research Center, says he noticed that many of his patients who complained of pains in their body had very low vitamin D in their blood. When Dowd began researching vitamin D deficiency, he started to see a pattern. "The more I read the more I realized that all these complaints people kept coming in with, including all the children I was seeing, much of it was probably vitamin D deficiency," says Dowd. In fact, when he began prescribing vitamin D supplements to his patients with vitamin D deficiency, many began to see an improvement in their fatigue within weeks and less pain within months.
Dowd, who is also an associate professor of clinical medicine at Michigan State University, says health care professionals don't usually check their patients' vitamin D levels.
Vitamin D is essential for our bodies to absorb calcium and has been found to help with other conditions such as kidney and heart disease. It is a nutrient found in certain foods like fish and fortified milk, but Dowd says that unfortunately many children aren't getting enough vitamin D. He says parents should improve their children's diets so they get all the nutrients they need to be healthy.
Dowd says an excellent source of vitamin D is sunlight. Ultraviolet light from the sun causes the body to produce vitamin D. However, children today tend to spend a lot of time indoors and this decreases their ability to produce vitamin D. Dowd says parents should encourage their children to get more sunlight, "You have got to get outdoors and get some physical activity in the sun to make some vitamin D."
Dowd suggests that all parents track their children's vitamin D level, especially if they complain of body pain. "When you're getting your routine evaluation at your pediatrician you should really request your (child's) vitamin D level be measured so you know what it is, just like knowing your blood pressure and cholesterol as an adult," says Dowd.
Dowd's study has not yet been published and he is also working on a similar study looking at adults with bodily pains and their vitamin D levels. He hopes to have the results of both studies published soon. He has published a book this year titled "The Vitamin D Cure," which deals with vitamin D deficiency in North America and discusses ways that people can increase their vitamin D levels.
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