Vitamin D intake has played a role in children’s health since the 1930’s when the food industry started fortifying certain products such as cereal and milk with the vitamin to help reduce the onset of rickets in children. At the time, Vitamin D levels on the whole were considered insufficient for proper bone mineralization, thus requiring the fortification of certain foods. Even now, new research continues to show that vitamin D plays a significant role in keeping children healthy.
A recent study has reinforced the findings that vitamin D supplementation can help prevent winter colds in children. In this particular study, published in the journal Pediatrics, 250 school children in Mongolia were studied to determine if vitamin D supplementation could help reduce the risk of respiratory infections during the winter. Mongolian children are at particular risk for vitamin D deficiency due to the region’s harsh winters, where the sun’s rays are in short supply. The children chosen for the study already had low vitamin D blood levels. They were divided into two experimental groups: one group was given milk supplemented with 300 IU vitamin D and the other group received unfortified milk.
The results: those who received milk with vitamin D were 50% less likely to have a cold or respiratory infection during the time period of the study. Scientists believe that the connection between colds and vitamin D has to do with the role that vitamin D plays in the production of virus-fighting white blood cells.
Want to help your children stay healthy this winter? First thing you can do is send them outside! Vitamin D is called “the sunshine vitamin” because most of our vitamin D needs are met by exposure to the sun. Unfortunately, too much sun protection and more time spent indoors has led to wide spread vitamin D deficiency. Sunscreen has been shown to reduce vitamin D absorption by more than 90%! While it is of course important to protect against the potentially hazardous effects of the sun’s UV rays, completely walling ourselves off to them has deprived us of the vitamin D they carry. Encourage your children to spend 10-30 minutes outdoors daily without sunscreen free to help improve their vitamin D levels. Afterwards, feel free to lather on the sunscreen. But regularly getting those few minutes can do wonders for increasing your child’s vitamin D levels.
You can also add vitamin D fortified foods such as milk or cereal into your child’s diet, but it would be wise to also add some naturally rich vitamin D foods as well: foods such as fish (all kinds, but particularly salmon, mackerel, and halibut), shiitake mushrooms, eggs, and orange juice. A good multivitamin should also provide adequate vitamin D, and because of our difficulty getting out in the sun and the trouble in eating sufficient foods, experts strongly recommend taking one high in D. If you remember these 3 essential vitamin D sources – time in the sun, a healthy diet, and a dietary supplement high in vitamin D -your child will have a fighting chance against the looming threat of the winter cold!
