Kids, Allergies & Vitamin D
As any concerned parent can tell you, childhood allergies can be a deadly serious condition.
Children & parents carry EpiPens 24 hours a day just in case the child has an accidental exposure to peanut residue or some other killer allergen.
But what if I told you that your child may not need to carry that EpiPen.
What if I told you that correcting a simple nutritional deficiency may ease some of your worries.
According to this study, children who have a vitamin D deficiency (less than 15 nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter of blood) were 2.4 x more likely to be allergic to peanuts than their playmates with sufficient levels of vitamin D (more than 30 nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter of blood).
The Research
Researchers looked at blood samples of 3100 children and 3400 adults collected for the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). During their analysis, they were able to compare sensitivity levels to 17 different allergens with levels of vitamin D.
And while their research showed no association between vitamin D levels and allergies in the adult blood samples, there was a significant association for children and adolescents.
In fact, low vitamin D levels correlated with sensitivity to 11 of the 17 allergens tested, including both environmental allergens (ragweed, oak, dog, cockroach) and food allergens like peanuts.
And while this research shows only an association and does not prove that low vitamin D levels cause allergies in children, researchers still strongly believe that following the latest dietary recommendations for vitamin D (600 IU per day) should keep your little bundles of joy from becoming vitamin D deficient and may help them reduce or eliminate their allergic sensitivity.
And that possibility has to be worth the annoyance of having your child take a tiny vitamin D pill first thing in the morning.
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It never ceases to amaze me how many different diseases and illnesses have been conclusively linked to vitamin D deficiency.
It would not surprise me in the least if indeed another study at a later date established a link between this nutritional shortage and adult allergies. Just because science hasn’t confirmed the relationship YET doesn’t mean that it won’t happen over due time.
The vitamin D renaissance only started a few short years ago, so we should be able to look forward to more research in the upcoming years confirming even more links between vitamin D deficiency and various illnesses.