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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Vitamin D grows healthy bones and keeps them strong -- and new guidelines suggest your child may need double the amount he or she currently receives.
The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends double the currently recommended amount of vitamin D for kids. Authors detailed in a recent report the reasons behind a need to increase the current recommendations of 200 IU, or international units, of vitamin day per day to 400 IU per day. The new guidelines apply to infants, children and adolescents.
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Experts have recently observed a continued prevalence of rickets, a disease that softens the bones, among infants in the U.S. The change is based on clinical trials showing 400 IU of vitamin D per day as a safe option to both prevent and treat rickets. They recommend that vitamin D be supplemented since natural sources of vitamin D are limited and children spend increasingly less time in the sun.
Breastfeeding is the best source of nutrition for infants, Carol Wagner, M.D., F.A.A.P., a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Breastfeeding Executive Committee and co-author of the report, was quoted as saying. However, because of vitamin D deficiencies in the maternal diet, which affect the vitamin D in a mothers milk, it is important that breastfed infants receive supplements of vitamin D.
New guidelines include supplementing infants with 400 IU of vitamin D per day beginning in the first days of life and supplementing infants and children who consume less than one quart of vitamin-D-fortified formula or milk per day.
New evidence suggests vitamin D may prevent infections, autoimmune disease, cancer and diabetes.
SOURCE: Pediatrics clinical report, 2008;122:1128-1138
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