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RICKETS
Rickets making comeback; kids not getting enough sunlight
By ERIN MCCLAM -- The Associated Press
ATLANTA -- Childhood rickets -- a bone-softening disease that had become so rare the U.S. government stopped keeping statistics on it -- is making a comeback, in part because some
youngsters are not getting enough sunlight, health officials say.
Rickets, a vitamin D deficiency that causes bones to soften and bend and often results in bow legs, was once a major health problem. ~ The
addition of vitamin D to milk in the 1930s virtually eliminated the disease.
But health officials said Thursday that health departments across the United States are seeing a resurgence.
The
government attributes the comeback to the popularity of milk substitutes like soy that lack certain nutrients (Vitamin D); the failure to supplement breast milk with vitamin
D; and a lack of childhood exposure to sunlight. ~ Sunlight stimulates the body to produce vitamin D.
The resurgence has been seen particularly among children breastfed by black mothers. Dark-skinned people
absorb less sunlight.
"It's something people have become lax about," said Dr. Norman Carvalho of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, a children's hospital. "We've been living under the
assumption that rickets doesn't occur anymore. But there's a definite increase in the number of cases we're seeing. It seems to be a trend."
Carvalho led a Georgia study of malnutrition in children that
appears in the April issue of the journal Pediatrics.
The 1997-99 study concluded that about one in 200,000 children in Georgia is hospitalized with rickets. ~ But Carvalho cautioned that the rate is
probably higher because the study was conducted in the South, where children may get more sun, and because there is no national reporting system.
The study offered no overall national numbers, and there are
no earlier figures with which they can be compared.
Among the study's conclusions: children are not getting enough vitamin D because their parents are keeping them indoors more, leaving them at day-care
centres or trying to protect them from skin cancer.
"Parents are working long hours," Carvalho said. "Parents are coming home after dark, and their children are only getting out in the sunlight over the weekends."
The renewed concern over rickets poses a dilemma for health officials, who have long urged parents to put sunscreen on their children to protect them from ultraviolet rays -- which (the
rumour goes) cause skin cancer, but (this is a fact) also produce vitamin D.
"We really can't promote increased sun exposure for children," said Kay Tomashek (to cover his butt), an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. "So it's so important for parents to discuss with physicians the child's nutrition needs."
That includes being more careful about milk substitutes, which are growing more popular among
health-conscious people, vegetarians and people with allergies. Some soy milk products do not have sufficient vitamin D for toddlers, and some rice-based milks do not have enough protein.
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