title: Vitamin D and skeletal health in infancy and childhood.
abstract: During growth, severe vitamin D deficiency in childhood can result in symptomatic hypocalcaemia and rickets. Despite the suggestion from some studies of a secular increase in the incidence of rickets, this observation may be driven more by changes in population demographics than a true alteration to age, sex and ethnicity-specific incidence rates; indeed, rickets remains uncommon overall and is rarely seen in fair-skinned children. Additionally, the impact of less severe vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency has received much interest in recent years, and in this review, we consider the evidence relating vitamin D status to fracture risk and bone mineral density (BMD) in childhood and adolescence. We conclude that there is insufficient evidence to support the suggestion that low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] increases childhood fracture risk. Overall, the relationship between 25(OH)D and BMD is inconsistent across studies and across skeletal sites within the same study; however, there is evidence to suggest that vitamin D supplementation in children with the lowest levels of 25(OH)D might improve BMD. High-quality randomised trials are now required to confirm this benefit.
authors.affiliation: MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO16 6YD, UK.
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Moon
authors.forename: N C
authors.initials: NC
authors.lastname: Harvey
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Davies
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cooper
mesh_terms: D015519:Bone Density / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D058866:Osteoporotic Fractures / Q000097:blood / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D012279:Rickets / Q000097:blood / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology; D014807:Vitamin D / Q000031:analogs & derivatives / Q000097:blood; D014808:Vitamin D Deficiency / Q000150:complications* / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D014807:Vitamin D; C104450:25-hydroxyvitamin D