Low vitamin D levels may be associated with childhood allergies, according to a study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
Researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at New York’s Yeshiva University studied the data of 3,100 children and 3,400 adults from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2005 and 2006.
They found a link between low levels of vitamin D in children and adolescents and sensitivity to 11 of the 17 possible allergens, which included both environmental causes such as ragweed and animals, and food allergens such as peanuts. No such correlation was found between vitamin D levels and allergies in adults.
Children who were considered vitamin D deficient, with less than 15 nanograms of vitamin D per millimeter of blood, were 2.4 times as likely to have a peanut allergy as those children who had a sufficient level of vitamin D – over 30 milligrams of the vitamin in the same amount of blood.
Researchers caution that the results only indicate a link and do not prove that a lack of vitamin D causes the allergies – but still urge that children should consume sufficient amounts of the vitamin.
"The latest dietary recommendations calling for children to take in 600 IU (15 mcg) of vitamin D daily should keep them from becoming vitamin-D deficient," said Dr. Michal Melamed, senior author of the study.