Prolonged Gaming Blamed For Rickets Rise 254
superapecommando writes "Too many hours spent playing videogames indoors is contributing to a rise in rickets, according to a new study by doctors. Professor Simon Pearce and Dr Tim Cheetham of Newcastle University have written a paper in the British Medical Journal which warns of the rickets uptake – a disease which sufferers get when deficient in Vitamin D. The study boils down to the fact that as more people play videogames indoors they don't get enough sunlight and this has meant the hospitals are now having to combat a disease that was last in the papers around the time Queen Victoria was on the throne." At least the kids are eating enough snacks with iodized salt that we don't have to worry about goiters.
Milk? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wouldn't drinking milk resolved the Vitamin D deficiency. I do not know much about the Richet illness but what does sunlight have to do with Calcium.
Grain of salt... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, and obligatory: correlation does not imply causation
Gaming? (Score:5, Interesting)
Bullshit.
More likely the result of fear-tactic news scaring people into keeping their kids indoors 24 hours a day except for school. Playgrounds are where perverts lurk, remember? Gotta keep little Billy safe!
Of course, indoors there are videogames - but there's also books, and television. Gaming is just one possible indoor activity - if you don't let your kids outside, don't be surprised if they end up fucked up.
Re:Grain of salt... (Score:2, Interesting)
Risk factors include skin pigmentation, use of sunscreen or concealing clothing, being elderly or institutionalised, obesity, malabsorption, renal and liver disease, and anticonvulsant use
Gilchrest fractures (Score:3, Interesting)
Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council site also calls these "Gilchrest Fractures" after a dermatologist: ...
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/newsletter/2006-nov.shtml [vitamindcouncil.org]
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Your son had what I call a "Gilchrest fracture." About 30 years ago, dermatologists like Barbara Gilchrest at Boston University, began telling Americans, including children, to stay out of the sun, lather on the sunblock, and to "drink milk" if they are concerned about vitamin D. The problem is that your son would have to drink at least 40 glasses of milk a day to get enough vitamin D if he followed her sun-avoidance advice and it sounds like he did.
Gilchrest fractures are vitamin D deficiency fractures in healthy people that occur after normal activities. Two studies have clearly linked such fractures to low vitamin D levels. A recent Finnish study found Gilchrest fractures to be almost four times more likely in young soldiers with vitamin D levels below 30 ng/ml (75 nmol/L). An earlier study of Israeli soldiers showed the same thing. The surprising thing about both studies was none of the men were obviously vitamin D deficient, indicating—once again—that current lower limits of vitamin D blood levels are set too low and that serum 25(OH)D levels should be maintained at 50–80 ng/ml, year-round. [Ruohola JP, et al. Association between serum 25(OH)D concentrations and bone stress fractures in Finnish young men. J Bone Miner Res. 2006 Sep;21(9):1483–8. Givon U, et al. Stress fractures in the Israeli defense forces from 1995 to 1996. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2000 Apr;(373):227–32.]
The rates of Gilchrest fractures, even in young people, have been steadily increasing over the last thirty years, since dermatologists have been handing out their pathological advice. For example, the incidence of fractured wrists in American kids went up 32% in boys and 56% in girls between the years 1970–2000. [Khosla S, et al. Incidence of childhood distal forearm fractures over 30 years: a population-based study. JAMA. 2003 Sep 17;290(11):1479–85.]
A study in Great Britain showed a clear latitudinal variation with the lowest fracture rates in sunnier southeast England and the highest rates in of Gilchrest fractures in Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. [Cooper C, et al. Epidemiology of childhood fractures in Britain: a study using the general practice research database. J Bone Miner Res. 2004 Dec;19(12):1976–81.]
The good news is that your son only suffered a broken foot by following Professor Gilchrest's advice. As you will see below, others have lost their lives.
All this leaves us with a question, "Are physicians responsible for their advice?" When dermatologists or other physicians subvert the vitamin D steroid hormone system by telling patients to avoid the sun, do they assume an affirmative duty to assess and maintain the vitamin D system they have subverted? Do they have a duty to inform their patients about relevant risks of sun-avoidance? Do they have a duty to inform their patients about relevant risks of vitamin D deficiency? How many dermatologists even bother to check vitamin D levels in their pale-as-ghost patients? How many bother to advise vitamin D supplements? If they do advise supplements, how many advise enough vitamin D to compensate for lack of sunlight? These are questions for tort lawyers.
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Citation Needed (Score:1, Interesting)
Just throwing this out there, but the healthy level of vitamin D in the blood varies depending whether the body needs to be storing calcium in bones or removing calcium from bones (to prevent tetanus between meals, etc.) Your level of 60 ng/mL should have some variance. Also, the liver/skin stores of vitamin D are probably more important because of the relatively short functional lifetime of activated vitamin D.
Are there statistically robust data that show a reduced ability to synthesize vitamin D using sunlight. It might be possible because of restricting our cholesterol, since you need that to make the vitamin D. I am quite doubtful on this point, though.
Recommending 4,000 to 8,000 IU per day? Again, statistically robust data. That might be a good amount. It might work for you. It might work for people with impaired vitamin D metabolism. But I'm not sure it's a good GENERAL guideline. I'd want some studies on that, not just some doc's opinion.
D3 is, if I recall, more readily used by the body than D2, requiring fewer metabolic steps to be ready to use.
I would say the message is: if you're going to supplement Vitamin D, try D2 and D3 to see which works best. Try a bunch of doses to see what's helpful. Try spending more time in the sun. Whatever works best, go with that.
Above and beyond that, your post is really fishy.
Explains a lot. (Score:3, Interesting)