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By Tamara Clymer

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

After prompting testing from her doctor, Dr. Cynthia Brownfield, M.D., Morgan Quinn, 15 was diagnosed with a Vitamin D deficiency about three months ago.

Fifteen-year-old Morgan Quinn was determined. The St. Joseph teen wanted to lose a few pounds, so she made up her mind to change her diet and start exercising. But when it came time to get up and get moving, she was stuck. It was hard getting motivated.

“I just couldn’t make myself do it,” Morgan says. “I felt so sluggish.”

Meanwhile, during a routine office visit, her physician, Dr. Cynthia Brownfield, noticed Morgan’s blood pressure was a little high. After watching it hover at the same level for a few months, she decided to run a full blood panel. The results were surprising.

“Everything came out really well,” Morgan’s mom, Phyllis, says. “But the vitamin D level ended up being really low. It was supposed to be above 30. It was 13.”

“She was completely deficient,” Dr. Brownfield says.

Morgan is not alone. In fact, according to a recent study in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, 70 percent of U.S. kids have low vitamin D levels. Of those, 9 percent were actually deficient, having less than half of what their body needs.

Dr. Brownfield says the problem isn’t in our kids’ bodies ― it’s in their lifestyle.

Our parents and grandparents spent a great deal of time as kids working and playing outdoors where the body easily can convert sunshine into vitamin D. Since it only takes about 15 minutes of sunshine a day to produce enough vitamin D, they were getting plenty. But kids aren’t walking to school as much anymore. They don’t work in the fields or even spend much time playing outside. Instead, they’re parked in front of the TV playing video games or working on the computer.

And if they do head outside, worried parents rub sunscreen on to prevent skin cancer. Unfortunately, what protects our little ones from the sun’s harmful effects also keeps them from collecting its benefits.

When you add that to the fact that kids are choosing soft drinks, juice and sports drinks over milk, you have the recipe for vitamin D deficiency.
The problem is, vitamin D plays a big role in maintaining a healthy body. Everyone knows it helps the body turn calcium into strong bones, but it does much more. It controls blood pressure, processes sugar, speeds up metabolism and helps maintain a strong immune system. It may even be able to prevent heart disease, cardiovascular issues and breast, colon and prostate cancers. In fact, one study shows women with an adequate vitamin D level have a 50 percent less risk of breast cancer.

“We don’t know if it’s the chicken or the egg,” Dr. Brownfield says. “Do you have these diseases and then they make you low on vitamin D? We don’t know, but they do notice that if your vitamin D is adequate you tend to have less of these other problems.”

With kids, issues like diabetes, heart disease and cancer may not show up right away, but researchers say if they have low vitamin D levels now, they may run a higher risk of developing those diseases later in life.

For now, the deficiency shows up in younger kids as bone deformities, like rickets ― a condition that makes their bones soft and deformed. As they become teenagers, the symptoms become more pronounced. Teens will complain of being tired and having little aches and pains, and they will be depressed and have no energy.

Even if your children don’t show obvious symptoms, Dr. Brownfield says parents need to take a close look at their child’s lifestyle. If they’re an inside kid who doesn’t drink a bunch of milk and they’re complaining of aches and pains, are tired all the time and have a weight problem, it may be time to talk to the doctor about being tested, especially if the child has darker skin. (The melanin in darker skin pigment is believed to prevent the skin from absorbing enough sunlight to produce enough vitamin D.)

“It’s definitely something to consider,” she says.

And if there is a problem, parents need to take action. Instead of going outside in the sun, sunscreen free, Dr. Brownfield recommends parents make sure younger children drink at least four 8-ounce glasses of milk a day or take at least a daily multivitamin. For teenagers, she recommends something more.

“I recommend most teenagers take a 2,000 unit (of vitamin D) every day,” she says. “They’ll be fine with that.”

That’s what Morgan is doing, and she says she’s noticed a huge difference since she’s started taking it. She feels better, isn’t as tired anymore and has finally started that exercise routine.

“If I don’t take my vitamin D pill, I actually feel the effects,” she says.

Her mom is taking Morgan’s cue. After noticing exercise wasn’t helping her weight-loss battle, Phyllis made an appointment to get her vitamin D level checked as well.

“If it’s fine, then that’s good,” she says. “But if it’s a little deficient and it’s something that I can correct then I think it’s great.”