Doctors have ‘busted a myth’ about Vitamin D and children

Doctors say they have just "busted a myth" about the powers of vitamin D.

Paediatrician Dr Jonathon Maguire says that giving children high doses of vitamin D does not appear to reduce the winter sniffles, despite popular beliefs about the 'sunshine vitamin'. Dr Maguire led a randomised clinical trial in which 350 healthy children were given a standard dose of vitamin D drops during the winter, while another 350 got a high dose. On average, the children who received the standard dose had 1.91 colds per winter, while the children who received the high dose had 1.97 colds, which the doctor says was of no statistical difference. His findings have just been published online in the medical journal JAMA. Dr Maguire says the results may have just busted a myth:

"More is not always better. Our findings do not support the routine use of high dose vitamin D supplementation for the prevention of wintertime upper respiratory tract infections among healthy children."

Colds and other viruses in the upper respiratory tract (the nose and throat) are the most common infectious illnesses among children. For the past 30 years, vitamin D has been thought to play a role in preventing or reducing these infections. But the paediatrician says that there has been little clinical data on which to make informed decisions.