Added: 02/03/2006 |
The Problem of Vitamin D Deficiency and How to Resolve itIn recent years in the United States of America the main trend was the avoidance of sunlight exposure in order to obviate cancer of skin. Still, this trend is corresponding of further scrutiny. Of course, excessive sunlight could be harmful for some people, it must be mentioned that the sunlight action on the skin is a main vitamin D source for many people. Sunlight deficiency and therefore vitamin D shortage can lead to osteomalacia in adults and rickets in children.
Children rickets was a wide spread problem in industrial, smoggy urban territories at the beginning of the nineteenth century, especially in Great Britain. It has been assumed that the crippled little child Tiny Tim in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" may have suffered from rickets.
Perhaps, most of us in the childhood got a cod liver oil daily dose especially in winter months. Those arrangements were carried out with the purpose to prevent children rickets, because of vitamin D deficiency in the winter months. Do you know what food can compensate a lack of vitamin D in your organism? Of course, this is cod liver oil, because it contains appreciable amounts of essential vitamin D.
Starting from 30s in the last century, the United States dairy industry began to produce milk fortified with vitamin D with the purpose to prevent rickets in children and adult people on a nationwide level. Still, some specialists say that rickets in children would be making an unasked comeback in last years because of the vogue of children sun exposure avoidance combined with the escalating popularity of soy and rice based drinks, which, as you understand, may not always be fortified with vitamin D. According to studies carried out in the late 90s of the last century in Georgia it was discovered that about 1 in 180,000 children in Georgia has been hospitalized with rickets.
There are some signs of vitamin D deficiency such as beaded ribs, bowed legs, soft bones, fractures, enlarged forehead, scoliosis, irritability, wrist and ankle flares, delayed dentition, restlessness, muscle weakness, sunken chest (pectus excavatum), crawl late or infants walk, sweaty head, stunted growth, barrel chest (pectus carnitum). Deficiency of vitamin D and depression are interconnected, because no one wants to have such problems like foregoing.
Those problems are linked with vitamin D deficiency and rickets, but vitamin D deficiency may cause other bad disorders and problems such as: muscle twitching, joint pain, weakness of muscles, osteoporosis, osteopenia and some special cancer forms, including colon and breast cancer. Except for muscle and bone problems, some testimony suggests a vitamin D lack may be concerned with a set of more serious illnesses and problems, such as most cancer forms, high pressure of blood, also disorders of immune-system such as diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and of course some forms of depression.
Studies carried out in recent years indicate a decreased rate of breast and colon cancer in areas with high sunlight level. It is very interesting, that researches have also indicated a growth in the breast cancer risk in women whose work starts at night (the grave yard shift) - those people who have to sleep during daylight hours.
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