Breastfed infants may need vitamin D supplements

[Celebration]

http://tinyurl.com/kx4y4

Breastfed babies living in northern latitudes often lack healthy levels of vitamin D, and may even be severely deficient, results of a new study suggest.

"In northern latitudes, such as that in Iowa (41 degrees North), sunshine is too diminished in the winter for the infants to generate enough vitamin D on their own," lead author Dr. Ekhard E. Ziegler told Reuters Health.

Ziegler, from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, and his team analyzed blood samples from 84 infants when they were about 9 months old. Forty-nine received vitamin D, either from formula or supplements, while 35 were breastfed and received no supplements.


Eight breastfed infants were considered to be deficient, defined as having blood levels of the active metabolite of vitamin D -- 25-hydroxyvitamin D -- (25-OHD) of less than 11 nanograms per milliliter. Two of these infants were considered to be severely deficient, with levels below 5 nanograms per milliliter.

[bemildred]

1. This problem is not restricted to infants.

Vitamin D is very important, and everybody ought to pay more attention to it. It would be interesting to know what the Eskimo do.

[Xipe Totec]

3. Fish oil has plenty of vitamin D

It's what makes it possible for humans to live at high latitudes.

[bemildred]

7. They feed infants fish oil, or they get if from mama? nt

[Xipe Totec]

8. That, I do not know...

That's a good question.

I imagine both.

I don't know enough to say when Inuit babies begin eating fish.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

10. from mama

the baby eats what mom eats, good or bad.


trivia...

The Inupiat infant rarely had a set feeding or sleeping time - which was hardly surprising considering the similar lack of schedule of most adults. When the baby cried it was fed, whether by breast or bottle. Following World War II, bottle feeding was encouraged for those adults with sufficient cash income to obtain canned milk. By the age of one, all children were eating solid foods including homemade broths and premasticated meat. Weaning was a gradual process that might not be completed until the third or even fourth year. An older child rarely was rejected in favor of a younger one, and the transition occurred with little difficulty.

http://arcticcircle.uconn.edu/HistoryCulture/Inupiat/growingup.html

[bemildred]

11. Thank you.

I was guessing they faked it the first few months and then went to pre-chewed stuff.

[HuckleB]

17. Mass medication with Omega 3 would wipe out global fish stocks

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1801508,00.html

[Xipe Totec]

18. Who said anything about supplements?

I answered a specific question regarding where native peoples of the artic obtain vitamin D in the absence of adequate sunlight.

please read my reply in context.

[HuckleB]

22. Really?... above you didn't know if they got it in breastmilk or fish oil.

Did you magically change the context?

[Xipe Totec]

24. You need to learn some logic

and get your facts straight while you're at it.

The fact that I don't know whether Inuit babies get vitamin D directly from fish oil, or indirectly by drinking their mother's milk, does not change the fact that I do know that fish oil contains vitamin D.

Fish contain fish oil. If you eat fish, you consume fish oil, therefore you ingest vitamin D in the process. Do you get it now?

Second, vitamin D and Omega-3 fatty acids are two different substances. Did YOU magically change the context?

[Crunchy Frog]

9. I think they eat polar bear liver. n/t

[applegrove]

2. Oh My God! They have been putting vitamin D in our milk for more

than a generation.. because we white folk just don't absorb enough from the sun now that we live and work inside as the day is long.

Call the firemen, the police!! Westerners don't get enough vitamin D!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WAke up! this is old!

[Xipe Totec]

5. The other way around

Melanin blocks absorption of sunlight and causes vitamin D deficiency. Light skin is an adaptation to low sunlight, to catch as much sun as possible. On the other hand, too much sunlight destroys folic acid causing other problems (spina bifida). Dark skin is an adaptation to too much sun, to conserve folic acid.

There was a very interesting article about this in Scientific American less than a year ago.

[applegrove]

12. Wake UP! We were not all albinos like SNowflake. We were dark &

harry. Then some moved north upwards of 15,000 years ago. And went white to be able to absorb more vitamins from the sun. And pretty much the lucky ones where fishing all the time.

Yup - white folk have adapted to absorbing as much sun as possible.. after the hair was gone. And then we started to live most of our lives inside in about 1920. Many of us started to live inside in winters 30,000 years ago. And thus in more shelter. Less sun.

So with the vitamin D. In our milk. And the white skin. It is only part of the story.

And darn if the milk doesn't have the right amount of D for dark skinned north mericans. Just like..there is not something other than grain alcohol in booze... cause to do that would help people who were not european in origin..it would help those of partial asian descent and being first peoples...live and fight addiction...if they are unlucky enough to get the alcohol fighting genes of their avearage nothern Asian ancestor... 10 000 years ago... when fermented milk was the only thing they faced .... well... in a fermented form. Some don't got the enzimes.

In both cases.. you ignore the fact that something sold and big business was solving only the issues facing the "consuming public" of the time. That would be white people in North America. The amounts of Vitamin D in milk and grain alcohol help nobody who was marginalized 50 years ago.

And to turn it into a crisis.. when the crisis is elsewhere (really just drink your milk you idiots and get some small fish that are not filled with poison like tuna) is ridiculous and cruel. There are other health crisis we should be focussing on..that are not so narcissistic!

MOm's need vitamins. Babies need breast milk. Kids need fish that are healthy. Fight for the oceans and the climate. We have to adjust to our current lifestyles..given that our old lives (farmers) are gone, gone, gone.

Don't call it a crisis. A crisis is the type of alcohol kids face in nothern areas of Canada. A crisis is that the poor cannot afford vitamins. The crisis is the climate. Not that something that comes out of mom's breasts is a DANGER DANGER DANGER.. (unless of course you live in a very vulnerable desert like the innu or unuit of Northern Canada where the eating of game and fish results in PCB levels over the top).

Get with where the crisis is. It isn't with what would suit a few corporations best.. it isn't with "oh my gosh you must drink milk in the morn to loose weight"type rumours industry puts out.

The crisis is with the climate. The lifestyle. The lobbyists. It ain't in mom.

[Xipe Totec]

14. I'm sorry, does your rant have a point?

or a target?

I don't see where I said anything about drinking milk.

I don't see where I called anything a crisis.

I don't see where I mentioned alcohol in my post.

Why are you telling me to wake up?

[applegrove]

15. I was seeing red yesterday. My bad. You are right..I reread..and I have

absolutely no point!:rofl:

[Xipe Totec]

19. Peace!

It was a funny post.

:hi:

[applegrove]

21. It was not a good day. All I can do is laugh at my post. That was the

least of my issues. And in relative terms.. seeing red and posting "red" was pretty light as it went.

[Celebration]

6. waking up

The interesting thing is that breast feeding is negatively correlated to Type 1 diabetes in children (which, if it were actually tracked, would most likely be epidemic)...........yet Vitamin D levels are also negatively correlated to Type 1 diabetes. So........when kids were breast fed AND given cod liver oil are they virtually immune to the disease??? Not to mention cancer, etc. that are also related...........

Breast feed the kids......take them out in the sunshine (no burns!!) Give them the nasty cod liver oil... bask in their good health.

[applegrove]

13. Exactly. And he real crisis in the USA is that many don't have preventive

medicine. Many don't have a health professional to say... Baby?: Sun, fish, breast milk and stop it with the industrial house cleaners. That baby should eat at least 4 spiders..by the time they are 5. That baby should be playing in dirt (rather than getting the pill long after allergies and intolerances develop).

[Kali]

4. naked babies in the sun!

[HuckleB]

16. Not much new here.

Still, it's a wonder we ever survived as a species on "mere" breastmilk. (Sarcasm.)

[Celebration]

20. "Mere" breastmilk probably okay

If you get outdoors every day and get moderate amounts of sunshine--sans sunscreen. Who does that anymore?

[HuckleB]

23. My family does.