2008 Woodie Awards
Vitamin D deficiency is widespread
Recommended dosages of essential vitamin are insufficient for children with cystic fibrosis
Issue date: 11/13/08
Physicians at Hopkins Children's Center have been studying vitamin D deficiency in juvenile patients with cystic fibrosis, a hereditary disease that affects the exocrine or mucus glands of the intestines, pancreas, lungs and liver.
Cystic fibrosis results in frequent lung infections and decreased secretion of pancreatic enzymes, which in turn leads to difficulty in absorbing fat-soluble vitamins.
As such, children with CF are often at risk for malnutrition, as their condition makes it nearly impossible for them to absorb the necessary nutrients.
Deanna Green, a pediatric pulmonologist at Hopkins Children's Center, Peter Mogayzel, director of the Hopkins Children's Cystic Fibrosis Center and colleagues studied 262 children with cystic fibrosis.
They found current recommendations for correcting vitamin D deficiency in children with CF to be too low, leaving them at risk for bone loss and rickets.
Despite being provided with dosages of the vitamin equal to or greater than the current recommendations to treat the deficiency, approximately half of the participants in the study consistently had low bloodstream levels of vitamin D.
The researchers decided to treat adults and children with cystic fibrosis with 50,000 IU (standard unit for drug dosages) of ergocalciferol, a form of vitamin D, every day over the course of four weeks in an attempt to alleviate the deficiency. The deficiency is defined as less than 30 nanograms of vitamin D per cubic millimeter by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
They found that the recommended 50,000 IU that was given weekly over the span of eight weeks to be effective in a mere 33 percent of patients and a twice-weekly dose to be effective in 26 percent of patients.
In comparison, 43 percent of children with CF who were treated three times a week with the identical dosage showed improvements.
Researchers have just completed an additional study, which found that 50,000 IU daily over the course of 28 days only worked over the short term.
Cystic fibrosis results in frequent lung infections and decreased secretion of pancreatic enzymes, which in turn leads to difficulty in absorbing fat-soluble vitamins.
As such, children with CF are often at risk for malnutrition, as their condition makes it nearly impossible for them to absorb the necessary nutrients.
Deanna Green, a pediatric pulmonologist at Hopkins Children's Center, Peter Mogayzel, director of the Hopkins Children's Cystic Fibrosis Center and colleagues studied 262 children with cystic fibrosis.
They found current recommendations for correcting vitamin D deficiency in children with CF to be too low, leaving them at risk for bone loss and rickets.
Despite being provided with dosages of the vitamin equal to or greater than the current recommendations to treat the deficiency, approximately half of the participants in the study consistently had low bloodstream levels of vitamin D.
The researchers decided to treat adults and children with cystic fibrosis with 50,000 IU (standard unit for drug dosages) of ergocalciferol, a form of vitamin D, every day over the course of four weeks in an attempt to alleviate the deficiency. The deficiency is defined as less than 30 nanograms of vitamin D per cubic millimeter by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
They found that the recommended 50,000 IU that was given weekly over the span of eight weeks to be effective in a mere 33 percent of patients and a twice-weekly dose to be effective in 26 percent of patients.
In comparison, 43 percent of children with CF who were treated three times a week with the identical dosage showed improvements.
Researchers have just completed an additional study, which found that 50,000 IU daily over the course of 28 days only worked over the short term.
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