Rickets is back. Vital mineral D NHS supplementation for babies is lacking.

[Spareribs]

Further to Marigold22's post I need to highlight the importance of Vital mineral D again (sunshine). Especially for babies (and probably their mums too).

A baby died of rickets - here in Shropshire - in this day & age... & it's getting worse.

bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b...

Please tell everyone it's importance - we know on this forum (amongst other vital minerals)

Yes we have "Free" kids' minerals - but they're means-tested.

UK (except Ireland) >20% Vit D supplementation vs Europe 70% plus?

Are we losing babies lives/health for pennies?

Those who bear with me harping on about vitamins, please do so again.

Pic shows UK in the red way behind Europe in supplementing Vit D to children under 1

[bluebug]

You aren't harping on.

Like me you see the NHS has gone completely mad. Simple steps that improve many people's health whether they have chronic conditions or not are ignored and not promoted due to cost cutting.

[Spareribs in reply to bluebug]

Barking mad yes! So much to gain for the sake of a few pennies

[Treepie]

There are I suspect two factors .Those of us of a certain age know about rickets .It used to be common .When the treatment was known it was eradicated. Younger folk including doctors are hardly likely to be taught much about eradicated medical problems.

There are only about 50 cases a year which means not many doctors will come across rickets.

The second factor is the large scale immigration from hot countries .These immigrants cannot absorb Vit D well through their skin and some go round outside covered up so would get no sun if there was any.

I think I read that the Shropshire baby died of a heart attack with rickets as the cause.

[Hidden in reply to Treepie]

Spot on.

I remember having to take a spoonful of cod liver oil as a child, gross, but afterwards a spoonful of rosehip syrup, yummy! Rosehip does have vitamin D in it as well as A and of course C.

Milk, eggs in fact dairy in general contains lots of vitamin D.

Things like feeding adequate nutrition to your family has been lost in one generation, maybe they should bring back proper cooking lessons in school, I learned all about this sort of thing as a teenager!

Very sad case though 😔

[Treepie in reply to Hidden]

Yes my recollection also,even got cod liver oil at the work canteen when I began in 61.

[Spareribs in reply to Hidden]

Me too - I preferred the syrup!

Nutrition is taught at school, but fear of the sun is promoted heavily

[Hidden in reply to Spareribs]

They might teach them nutrition but that's not to say they remember and act on it.

The only one of our 4 that knows anything about nutrition is the only one I home educated. She's 20, the eldest are 38, 36 and 32. Her fiancé thinks he's in heaven as she can produce an extremely edible and nutritious home cooked meal with no additives in sight. The others were reliant on takeaways at her age, her sister actually rang me to ask how long it would take to boil an egg in the microwave, despite living in a house with a fully equipped kitchen at the time, true story! 😂

[Spareribs in reply to Hidden]

They didn't teach nutrition to my 4 either, the school 'healthy plate' was a joke! I also think it's pressure to diet - luckily none of mine need to.

However the syllabus has changed here recently (due to Jamie?). Even 'tho I'm a rubbish cook I managed to instill the idea that simple meat & 2 veg was proper food - not takeaways (I can't bake & never wanted to!) My eldest daughter is vegan now but is a dietitian, the rest try to cook from scratch.

J

[Spareribs in reply to Treepie]

Sadly that's true, although 'vitamin' (& pro-hormone) deficiencies have been known since at least the 1930s, I would bet there are lots more cases of osteomalacia-type problems due to low Vit D - things are diagnosed with a different name so a new drug can be produced.......

I believe the NHS lab 'City Assays' was set up years ago to test those ethnic groups prone to low Vit D levels - (that's the lab I use for my blood test home kit (the GP wouldn't test Vit D before or after I found out I was low).

Yes I replied to you on Marigold's post yesterday.

[Angel_of_the_North]

Or is it too much sunscreen in older children?

[Spareribs in reply to Angel_of_the_North]

Fear of the sun

[marigold22]

Have recently read that low vitamin D is implicated in depression

[Spareribs in reply to marigold22]

Yes, S.A.D. too - a good sunlamp would help (or sunny holiday!)

[Spareribs]

Study of Vitamin D & Icelandic children

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/290...