Black children with asthma in metropolitan Washington, D.C., are
significantly more likely to have low levels of vitamin D than healthy black
children, according to researchers at Children's National Medical Center.
Vitamin D deficiency recently has been linked to a variety of
non-bone-related diseases, including depression, autoimmune disorders and
now asthma.
"It's been well-documented that as a group, African-Americans are more
likely than other racial groups to have low levels of vitamin D," Robert
Freishtat, MD, MPH, an emergency medicine physician and lead author of the
study, said in a news release. "But we were shocked to see that almost all
of the African-American children with asthma that we tested had low vitamin
D levels. After adjusting for differences in age, weight, and the time of
year of the testing, the odds of these kids with asthma being vitamin D
deficient were nearly 20 times those of healthy kids."
These findings may mean that low vitamin D levels have more serious effects
on a child's lung health than previously believed.
"The District of Columbia has among the highest rates of pediatric asthma in
the United States, and we're working to find out why," Stephen Teach, MD,
MPH, senior author of the study, said in the release. "For African-American
kids with asthma, vitamin D testing and ensuring adequate vitamin D intake
may need to become necessary steps in their primary care."
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