Tag Archives: sunlight
Does Vitamin D Deficiency Cause Autism? – Part 2
Last week, I blogged about a report in Scientific American Magazine linking Vitamin D deficiency with Autism because of the rising number of autism cases in two communities of Somali immigrants who had moved from their equatorial country, with plenty of sunshine, to northern latitude countries.
You can read the Scientific American Magazine report at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=vitamin-d-and-autism and click here to read my blog post on it. This week, I have decided to dig a little deeper into the vitamin D theory.
Now, many people have pointed out that these Somali communities would also have faced other changes too, not just lack of sunlight. For example, their new environment may be more toxic (pollution and heavy metals), the vaccination program in their new countries may be different, their diet would have changed etc. So I’m not sure how this preliminary study was able to rule out these other factors and make vitamin D deficiency the missing link.
However, whatever we think about this report into vitamin D deficiency and the Somali communities, there are many scientists out there who do think that vitamin D is a factor that should not be dismissed and that needs to be taken seriously.
Vitamin D – Is it a Plausible Theory?
The Vitamin D Council is an organization run by John Jacob Cannell, MD, a doctor with a special interest in clinical nutrition, and it aims to educate and inform people about vitamin D to prevent vitamin D deficiency, and the illnesses and conditions which are caused by a deficiency.
Cannell points out that at the same time that we are experiencing a vitamin D deficiency epidemic, we are also in the midst of an autism epidemic – can the two be linked? Yes, Cannell believes that sun avoidance is the…
Does Vitamin D Deficiency Cause Autism?
In the past few weeks, there have been a couple of reports about Vitamin D in “Scientific American” magazine which both have bearings on autism.
Vitamin D Deficiency Affects the US
The first report was about how Vitamin D deficiency is soaring in the US, according to a study published in the “Archives of Internal Medicine”. The study claimed that a whopping three quarters of US teens and adults have a deficiency of vitamin D – that’s quite an incredible figure and makes you wonder why.
The study’s author, Adit Ginde, from the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine, puts this vitamin D deficiency down to skin cancer prevention measures such as wearing long sleeves and using sunscreen ( sun protection of just factor 15 can cut the skin’s ability to manufacture vitamin D by 99%) and points out that there are actually very few dietary sources of vitamin D. Vitamin D is known as the “sunshine vitamin” because the skin produces vitamin D when it is exposed to the sun. By protecting ourselves from sun exposure, to reduce our risk of melanoma, we are cutting our levels of vitamin D.
Is There a Link between Lack of Sun and Autism?
But what has all this got to do with autism? Doesn’t a vitamin D deficiency lead to bone problems, such as rickets, osteoporosis and arthritis, not autism?
Well, yes, but experts are now wondering if a growth in vitamin D deficiencies has got something to do with the growth in autism. This theory is the result of two preliminary studies in Minnesota and Sweden, and the findings of these studies are discussed in the second article in “Scientific American” magazine.
Both Sweden and Minnesota have large Somali immigrant communities who seem to be overrepresented in the total number…
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