Vitamin D Autism.

[mrsK]

Originally Posted by gmc

Diets now are better than they were twenty years ago, even better still than they were thirty or forty years ago. My mother's generation never ate vegetables or fruit on a regular basis for the simple reason it was not available all year round like they are now. Things like bananas and mangoes were unheard of. Rickets used to be one of the most common childhood diseases until people realised the importance of vitamins-or even what they were. The older generation still profess a dislike of vegetables-if you can't get them rationalise that you dislike them.

That has only become commonplace within the last thirty years or so. You don't say what nationality you are but unless you come from a country where fruit and vegetables are seasonal you might not appreciate the difference all year availability actually makes nowadays.

This is just hype put out by those that want to sell vitamin supplements through their health food outlets.

As to sunlight-being from a northern climate my body is adapted to long periods with no sun at all. That's why white Australians have a problem-they mainly come from climates where sunlight just meant the cloud cover got brighter. their bodies can't cope with too much sunshine.

You are right in saying there are lots of fruit & vegetables available now days.
But not many people get the right amounts of fruit & veg,some get hardly any.
People are finding it easier to get fast food rather than 5 veg & 3 fruit a day that has to be prepared at home

[tedhutchinson]

Originally Posted by mrsK

You are right in saying there are lots of fruit & vegetables available now days.
But not many people get the right amounts of fruit & veg,some get hardly any.
People are finding it easier to get fast food rather than 5 veg & 3 fruit a day that has to be prepared at home

Vitamin D does NOT come from fruit and vegetables.

It comes mainly from sunlight. It is absolutely impossible to obtain adequate Vitamin D from diet alone. The amounts of D3 in cod liver oil, oily fish and fortified milk are trivial compared to the amount our bodies get from sunshine.

Over 2 million years of living outdoors near naked our bodies became fine tuned to living with high levels of vitamin d from sunlight.

Our bodies NATURALLY attain and maintain a level of 25(OH)D between 125nmol/l and 200nmol/l.(50-80ng)) We only begin to store D3 for the winter when our 25(OH)D status is above 125nmol/l.

The average UK adult NEVER has a vitamin d status that allows breast milk to flow naturally with vitamin D3 or to store Vitamin d for the winter, let alone sufficient to ensure the optimum brain development of her offspring.

[kayleneaussie]

I personally think doctors are more aware of Autism and the symptoms than say 30 years ago. My daughter has asphbergers(excuse the spelling) and she has 2 autistic children. Why this happened I dont know but in Australia we get plenty of sunshine and our family eat very healthy. Taking vitamins might help but who knows.

[tedhutchinson]

Originally Posted by kayleneaussie

I personally think doctors are more aware of Autism and the symptoms than say 30 years ago. My daughter has asphbergers(excuse the spelling) and she has 2 autistic children. Why this happened I dont know but in Australia we get plenty of sunshine and our family eat very healthy. Taking vitamins might help but who knows.

But Vitamin d insufficiency is a problem in Australia. While it is true you get a lot more sun than the UK and more of your UVB reaches the ground (less pollution, nearer the Equator, and the Earth (because of the way it tilts in it's orbit) is nearer the sun when it's summer in Aus. So you get considerably more UVB than the equivalent latitude above the Equator.
This means the danger of skin cancer is much greater.
That is why your health authorities invented the slip, slop, slap mantra for skin protection.

Because every Aussie has this drummed into them (and rightly so from the skin cancer point of view) it's the case that Australian's are as likely as anyone else to have Vitamin D insufficiency.

You can only be sure you are not insufficient if you have a 25(OH)D and the D3 level is above 125nmol/l or 50ng Or you take 4000-5000iu/daily D3 if you are female and 5000-6000iu if male.

As I have pointed out before you can eat as healthily as you like. It won't make any significant difference to your Vitamin d status. It cannot because the best sources of Vit d (wild salmon) contains only 400iu of Vitamin D. You are NOT going to eat 10 portions of wild salmon every day.

This paper explains. Shrapnel and Truswell in Vitamin D status of Australians "only a few foods such as sardines contain significant amounts of vitamin D. Margarine provides approximately 50% of the total vitamin D intake for Australian adults.
The average estimated dietary intake of vitamin D for adults is less than 3 μg/day, (roughly 125iu) which is significantly lower than the estimated
The food regulations in Australia, apart for the mandatory fortification with vitamin D of margarine, only allow voluntary fortification of low-fat milk and milk products (sufficient to replace the vitamin D that may have been present in the fat component of the food). "

The fact remains you cannot get optimal brain development without adequate levels of Vitamin d3 and most women in Western cultures have insufficient vitamin d levels because they don't regularly get 15 minutes of full body sun exposure daily or take the equivalent amount of D3 to meet their daily needs.