'Sunshine vitamin' reduces risk

Making sure that babies and young children get enough vitamin D can reduce their risk of developing diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes, which starts at an early age, has been associated with a deficiency of vitamin D, the so-called sunshine vitamin, also found in fortified milk and dairy products, cod-liver oil and some fatty fish.

When Dr Elina Hypponen, of the Institute of Child Health in London, and her colleagues in Finland compared the health of more than 12,000 children, they found that the youngsters who had been given vitamin D supplements were 80 per cent less likely to develop diabetes than children not given the vitamin.

"The risk of type 1 diabetes was also increased threefold if the child had been suspected of having had a vitamin D deficiency during the first year of life," Dr Hypponen said.

All the children in the survey were born in northern Finland in 1966. Researchers followed up their medical history until 1997 to see how many developed the disease.

"Our results suggest that development of type 1 diabetes is associated with low intake of vitamin D," Dr Hypponen said in a report in the Lancet medical journal.

She said the findings were not surprising because vitamin D acted as an immunosuppressive agent and diabetes was considered an autoimmune disease, caused by antibodies produced against substances naturally in the body.

The recommended daily dose of vitamin D for children is 400 international units, or 10mcg, a day.

But the researchers warned that high doses could be toxic and, in the most severe cases, deadly.

Type 1 diabetes sufferers produce little or no insulin because their bodies destroy the insulin-secreting beta cells in the pancreas.

About 10 per cent of diabetics have type 1, which is treated with insulin injections.

Dr Jill Norris, of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Centre in Denver, described the potential role of vitamin D in development of type 1 diabetes as intriguing.

She said the emphasis on breast feeding, keeping babies out of the sun and the use of sunscreens could be decreasing the intake and synthesis of Vitamin D. Although medical research has shown that breastfeeding is best for babies, breast milk does not contain enough vitamin D to cover infant needs.

- REUTERS

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