PARIS (Thomson Financial) - Taking vitamin D supplements in infancy may help
a youngster ward off Type 1 diabetes, according to a review of the evidence
released on Thursday in specialist journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Doctors in Britain looked at five studies in which children were monitored
from infancy to early childhood to see if vitamin D supplements made a
difference to the risk of becoming diabetic.
The risk of developing the disease was reduced 29 percent in children who
took extra vitamin D as compared to those who had not.
Diabetes is a chronic condition in which the body does not produce enough of
the hormone insulin, or cannot make proper use of the insulin it does produce, a
condition called insulin resistance.
In Type 1 diabetes, so-called beta cells in the pancreas that produce
insulin are destroyed in early childhood by the body's immune system.
The disease is most common among people of European descent, affecting
around 2 mln Europeans and North Americans, and for reasons that are unclear is
becoming more widespread.
Type 2 diabetes, which is far more common, is linked mainly with an
unhealthy diet and sedentary lifestyle. It is becoming epidemic in scale in many
developed or fast-developing countries.
The new study was led by Christos Zipitis of St Mary's Hospital for Women
and Children in Manchester, northern England.
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