Three out of four seriously ill children have vitamin D deficiencies, according to a new study by an Ottawa pediatrician, a finding that reinforces one Centretown physician’s concerns about low levels in many patients.
Researchers from the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario examined 300 patients from six hospitals, says Dayre McNally, the study’s lead author.
He says most of the children had severe infections or trauma. The sickest patients had the lowest vitamin D levels and took the longest to recover.
“The children who were lower on admission needed more help from things like breathing tubes and medication to regulate their blood pressure,” he says.
McNally became interested in the subject during his residency in Saskatoon. He worked with a rheumatologist who studied children who suffered from unexplained joint pain. The doctors noticed these children tended to have low vitamin D levels, which led McNally to work on another study. It found children suffering from pneumonia lack vitamin D.
He then moved to Ottawa and accepted a job at CHEO, where, he says, one of his colleagues was conducting a study on the hormone levels of sick children.
The study was published in Pediatrics journal alongside an article on a study performed at the Children’s Hospital in Boston.
Vitamin D is absorbed by the skin when people get their needed supply through spring or summer sunlight and is responsible for proper bone growth.
The body needs it to “balance the immune system,” says microbiologist Jason Tetro, a member of the University of Ottawa’s medical faculty.
The vitamin can help the immune system fight off viruses and infections and “if you have too little, there are going to be problems,” he says.
Most Canadians do not get enough vitamin D, says Dr. Megan Williams, a family physician at the Somerset West Community Health Centre.
While a person needs only to stand in the sun for 15 minutes to get an adequate daily dose, she says there is too little sunlight during Ottawa’s colder months.
She recommends that her patients take a daily supplement throughout their lives, especially during pregnancy because “the amount in a prenatal vitamin is not enough for pregnant women.”
Expectant mothers should take 1,000 to 2,000 units – about double the recommended dose for an average person, she says.
McNally says he intends to continue his research on how vitamin D affects sick children to see if seriously ill children recover more quickly when they are given a large dose of vitamin D.
“All children, healthy or otherwise, need to take vitamin D. Compliance with this isn’t very good, and that needs to change,” he says.