The findings appear in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Another new study, published in the journal Pediatrics, looks at levels of vitamin D in babies. It says newborns with the lowest levels were twice as likely to develop respiratory infections as those with normal levels of vitamin D.
Vitamin D helps build strong bones and strengthens the body's defenses against disease. The vitamin is commonly added to cow's milk and also found in supplements. But vitamin D is called the sunshine vitamin. The body naturally produces it from sunlight.
Carlos Camargo from Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts and other researchers did the study. It followed more than nine hundred children in New Zealand until they were five years old.
CARLOS CAMARGO: "And what we found was that children who had the lowest levels of vitamin D had a high risk of developing infections and wheezing throughout childhood."
He says the problem of vitamin D deficiency is not limited to countries with the least sun.
CARLOS CAMARGO: "People are moving more and more indoors. And they work indoors. They play indoors. Everything’s indoors. And so we’re actually starting to see low levels of vitamin D in areas where the sun is plentiful."
And that's the VOA Special English Health Report. I'm Steve Ember.
Contributors: Jessica Berman and Rose Hoban
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25