Good vitamin D intake can reduce depression in adolescence and adulthood, children's study finds
Last updated 1/23/2012 9:40:23 AM
Good vitamin D intake can reduce depression in adolescence and adulthood
Ensuring children have a good intake of vitamin D could help reduce depression in adolescence and adulthood, new findings suggest.
The link between depression and vitamin D - which we get from exposure to sunlight and from certain foods, like oily fish and fortified breakfast cereals - has already been established in adults. This is the first study to look at the vitamin's effect in children.
The University of Bristol investigation, which looked at vitamin D levels in over 2,700 children study when they were 9 years and 8 months old, found that those with higher levels of vitamin D were 10 per cent less likely to show signs of depression when they were tested again at the age of 13 years and 8 months old. Those with higher levels were also more likely to show a decline in depressive symptoms between the ages of 10 and a half and 13 years and 8 months.
Dr Anna-Maija Tolppanen, said: "Given the importance of depression in childhood and adolescence and the relative ease with which vitamin D levels could be increased with supplements, randomised controlled trials to assess its effectiveness in preventing depressive symptoms would be appropriate."
The university has been charting the health of 14,500 children since their birth in the early 1990s.The researchers tress that without evidence from randomised controlled trials, the findings do not warrant changes in nutritional policy nor that children should be routinely supplemented with high doses of vitamin D to prevent depressive symptoms.