October 13th, 2008
More confusion on vitamin D
My desk is becoming a drug shelf.
There’s glucosamine for my joints, fish oil for my heart, and tangy Vitamin C you can pop like candy.
Now they want us to add Vitamin D tablets? (If you’re a Costco member, and you buy what the doctors tell you, better buy these now.)
For the kids, yes.
That’s what the American College of Pediatrics is now recommending. They have doubled their daily recommendation of Vitamin D for kids, to 400 milligrams daily, and most important, they have suggested it be taken as a pill.
The last is the most startling part, because as we all know playing outside will give most kids the Vitamin D they need. So will four glasses of milk.
But fear of skin cancer and lactose intolerance are now causing kids to come up short on their Vitamin D intake, and thus the new recommendation.
As I noted in August Vitamin D is actually a hormone, one our bodies can actually produce themselves. But even a kid’s normal sun exposure can lead to tans and burns, both of which pediatricians now fear can lead to skin cancer later on.
This new recommendation is already proving controversial. The Louisville Courier-Press has an article out today still suggesting sunshine and food work fine. The Salt Lake Tribune says “bask in the sunshine,” but don’t overdo.
Parents are getting angry. “Funny how we were all so much healthier before we started to panic every time a lab rat died of something,” writes Lily Robertson at SeacoastOnline. I’m certain many parents nodded their heads in agreement at that.
Doctors are going to have to come up with some good explanations why God’s way of giving us Vitamin D is bad and the chemist’s way is better.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
Subscribe to ZDNet Healthcare via Email alerts or RSS.
