[tedhutchinson]

Originally Posted by gmc

Actually it's not that interesting a subject.

That surely is a matter of opinion. Every day I read the latest Vitamin D3 research and I find the new discoveries very interesting indeed. Perhaps you are not aware that ensuring your Vitamin d status is optimal reduces your chance of Cold/Flu by 70%, Perhaps you missed the research that showed a 50% reduction in Cancer incidence with optimal vitamin D status. When the next (due to be published next month) paper from Heaney is available I'll make sure you know. I fully expect it to prove that a 60% reduction in cancer incidence has been achieved with adequate Vitamin d intake. But I suspect you don't care about those dieing unnecessarily from Low Vitamin d status induced cancers.

Originally Posted by gmc

But perhaps you should read the articles you posted. .

What makes you think I haven't read every page of it and the abstracts available at the links provided?

It's hardly surprising is it? Don't know about where you live but we have shorter days in winter. Rickets Used to be very common in the industrial towns nowadays you rarely see it due to the vast improvement in diet..

If your car tyre is slowly losing air you can actually drive (not safely) without causing physical damage to the actual wheel. You may wreck the tyre but it has to be almost absolutely flat before the wheel rim is damaged. That is similar to Vitamin d deficiency causing rickets, physical damage to the skeleton. To obtain optimal tyre wear and optimal performance and fuel economy from your car you need optimum air pressure and that is considerably more air than sufficient to prevent physical damage to the wheel rim. This paper, signed by all the big names in Vitamin D research shows that the matter needs urgent attention.

The urgent need to recommend an intake of vitamin D that is effective.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 85, No. 3, 649–650, March 2007. Editorial.

http://www.dundee.ac.uk/medther/taye...nd_rickets.htmIf you had read or perhaps understood the research at the second link I provided you would be aware that the information from Dundee which you link to is out of date and doesn't reflect the current situation in the England or Scotland where the Vitamin D deficiency situation is even worse.

Your contention that autism is more prevalent now than in the past rather misses the point that the condition is now a recognised one and people are relatively familiar with the condition-especially after the measles vaccine scare.

Are autism rates increasing?Multiple scientific groups have reported greatly increasing rates of autism over the last twenty years. Dr. Hjordis Atladottir, of the University of Aarhus in Denmark, recently reported that hyperactivity and Tourette's syndrome (two other childhood neurodevelopmental disorders) have increased dramatically right along with autism, while a third, childhood obsessive‑compulsive disorder, has not changed at all. Why would some childhood neurodevelopmental disorders increase dramatically in such a short time, while another is entirely unchanged? Perhaps something is harming our children's brains, and doing so with increasing frequency.
Kippes C, Garrison CBAre we in the midst of an autism epidemic? A review of prevalence data.Mo Med. 2006 Jan–Feb;103(1):65–8. Newschaffer CJ, Falb MD, Gurney JGNational autism prevalence trends from United States special education data.Pediatrics. 2005 Mar;115(3):e277–82. Atladottir HO, et al.Time trends in reported diagnoses of childhood neuropsychiatric disorders: a Danish cohort study.Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2007 Feb;161(2):193–8. Baird G, et al.Prevalence of disorders of the autism spectrum in a population cohort of children in South Thames: the Special Needs and Autism Project (SNAP).Lancet. 2006 Jul 15;368(9531):210–5.
Professor Gillian Baird, and his colleagues at Guy's and St. Thomas' Foundation Trust in England, recently discovered that about 1 in 88 English children will eventually develop autism. Families caring for autistic children are under more stress than those caring for a child with cystic fibrosis, a fatal illness. The lifetime cost of autism is $3.2 million per case. Not only is autism epidemic, it is catastrophic. Bouma R, Schweitzer RThe impact of chronic childhood illness on family stress: a comparison between autism and cystic fibrosis.J Clin Psychol. 1990 Nov;46(6):722–30. Ganz MLThe lifetime distribution of the incremental societal costs of autism.Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2007 Apr;161(4):343–9.

In the USA incidence in 1993 was 19,058
in 2003 it rose to 141,022
to put that kind of increase simply down to better diagnosis is somewhat naive

Vitamin D may or not be a contributory factor but is hardly likely to be the full cause of the condition.

We won't know until research has been done to compare autism incidence according to the Vitamin d status of the mother over the 12 mths prior to birth and during lactation. In the mean time maintaining optimal Vitamin d status is the safest option. This research shows the level at which not only no measurable damage occurs but at which there is sufficient vitamin d in the system to enable all the systems controlled by Vitamin d status (that some 51 different tissue types and 200+genes) operate unrestricted by a shortage of the operating mechanism.

and your study hardly a blinding revelation.

If that is the case perhaps then you will kindly provide evidence of someone else who has proposed that autism may be related to vitamin D status prior to and after conception?