In sunny Goa, children vitamin D deficient (ToI)

TNN | Aug 4, 2014, 02.41AM IST
PANAJI: It's a sad irony-children in the sunshine state are increasingly afflicted with vitamin D deficiency, say doctors.

Vitamin D is a hormone essential for maintaining blood calcium levels and promoting bone growth, among other vital functions. While dietary sources of the vitamin are few, the best way to obtain the required levels of vitamin D is by allowing the skin to synthesize its own, by exposing it to sunlight for at least 45 minutes each day, says Dr R K Marwaha, past president of the Indian Society of Bone and Mineral Research.

With a large chunk of the population working in airconditioned offices and exercising in indoor gymnasiums, studies published in Pubmed central this year have revealed that around 70% of India's general population suffers from vitamin D deficiency.

Another malady that appears to have spun off the couch potato generation of kids, the deficiency disease is now plaguing the children of the affluent, who are not getting enough exposure to sunlight, resulting in what doctors have dubbed 'apartment rickets'.

"Earlier, we used to see rickets in poor, malnourished children, and even though cases of florid rickets, with visible bow legs are quite rare these days, vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent in children who spend most of their time indoors, watching TV or playing video games and eating high-calorie, low nutritive junk food," says consultant pediatrician Dr Sushma Kirtani.

"Vitamin D and calcium supplements are routinely doled out to people living in the middle eastern countries, where the weather is too hot for children to play outdoors. This is now becoming the norm among private practitioners, to counter the numerous long-term risks of vitamin D deficiency during childhood," she adds.

Head of pediatrics at Goa Medical College, Dr Maria P Silveira points out that the deficiency is often 'silent' in children, but manifests in prematurely porous and brittle bones once they grow up. "Adolescence is the time when bone mass and density develops, and children who grow up with the deficiency are at risk of developing osteoporosis and osteomalacia," she says.

Silveira stresses that vegetarian sources of vitamin D are few, and youngsters on a vegan diet are advised to consult a doctor for vitamin D and calcium supplements.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Goa/In-sunny-Goa-children-vitamin-D-deficient/articleshow/39576029.cms