In a study conducted in Mongolian schoolchildren,
an international research team found that daily vitamin D supplementation
decreased the risk of respiratory infections among children who had low blood
levels of vitamin D at the start of the study.

“In almost 250 children with low blood levels of vitamin D during winter, we
found that taking a daily vitamin D supplement cut in half the risk of a
respiratory infection,” Camargo stated.

Several recent investigations have suggested that vitamin D – best known for
its role in the development and maintenance of strong bones – has additional
important roles, including in immune function.

Since vitamin D is naturally produced by the body in response to sunlight,
maintaining adequate levels in winter is particularly challenging in areas such
as the northern U.S. and Canada that have significant seasonal variations in
daily sunlight.

The current study analyzed data from the Blue Sky Study, conducted in
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, by a team led by Harvard investigators in collaboration
with local health researchers.

Mongolians are known to be at high risk for vitamin D deficiency, especially
during winter, and the Blue Sky Study followed schoolchildren, all of whom were
found to have low blood levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD), which is
considered the best measure of vitamin D status, at the study’s outset.

In the current study, Camargo and colleagues compared the number of winter
respiratory infections among a group of children who received daily doses of
vitamin D added to locally produced milk with that of a control group receiving
the same milk without added vitamin D.

Based on reports from their parents, the children receiving vitamin D had
about half the incidence of respiratory infections that the control group had.

“Our study design provides strong evidence that the association between low
vitamin D and respiratory infections is causal and that treating low vitamin D
levels in children with an inexpensive and safe supplement will prevent some
respiratory infections,” says Camargo, a professor of Medicine at Harvard
Medical School.

Source : hindustantimes