Vit D cuts child diabetes risk

Doctors in Britain looked at five studies in which children were monitored from infancy to early childhood to see if vitamin D supplements made a difference to the risk of becoming diabetic.

The risk of developing the disease was reduced 29 percent in children who took extra vitamin D, as compared to those who had not.

Diabetes is a chronic condition in which the body does not produce enough of the hormone insulin, or cannot make proper use of the insulin it does produce, a condition called insulin resistance.

In Type 1 diabetes, so-called beta cells in the pancreas that produce insulin are destroyed in early childhood by the body's immune system.

The new study, led by Christos Zipitis of St. Mary's Hospital for Women and Children in Manchester, northern England, is published by Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Read more:
Diabetes Centre
Diabetes in children increasing

March 2008