Vitamin D: seasonal and regional differences in preschool children in Great Britain

AbstractIn Finland the recommendation for the use of vitamin D supplement is a daily supplement throughout the year for all children. It is also recommended that fluid milk products and fat spreads are fortified with vitamin D. The purpose of this study was to provide up-to-date data on children's dietary and supplemental intake of vitamin D. We also examined educational level differences in the intake and sources of vitamin D.A cross-sectional study on the diet in Finnish 3–6-year-old preschool children (the DAGIS Study) was carried out in 2015–2016. Children were recruited in preschools in Southern Finland and in the Southern Ostrobothnia Region (n = 864). The parents reported child's supplement use (brand name, dose, frequency of use) during the last month and their own education level. The highest parental education level (PEL) was used in analysis. Parents and preschool personnel also filled in a 3-day food record for the child. A part of the families also kept an additional 2-day food record, which we sent to capture seasonal variation in the diet. In this analysis we included children (n = 794) with data for supplement use and at least 1-day food record. We calculated dietary intake based on the Fineli food composition database and created a dietary supplement database. We used Kruskal-Wallis test for statistical analysis.Most of the children in all PELs used vitamin D supplements (low 77%, medium 85%, high 85%). Dietary supplements covered almost half of the total intake in all groups (low 42%, medium 48%, high 47%, p = 0,087). The main dietary sources of vitamin D were fortified fluid milk products, fortified fat spreads and fish dishes. A higher proportion of vitamin D was obtained from fish dishes in families with higher PEL (low 4.3%, medium 4.5%, high 6.1%, p = 0.005), but otherwise there were no differences in the proportions of the main sources. The vitamin D intake from diet and supplements was lowest in families with low PEL but the total intake of vitamin D was adequate in all groups (low 18.3, medium 20.7, high 20.7 μg/day, p = 0.001).The use of vitamin D fortified fluid milk products and fat spreads and the vitamin D supplementation seem to ensure adequate vitamin D intake in all children, regardless the level of parental education.

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Promoting healthy nutrition

10.1093/med/9780198788850.003.0011 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Charlotte M. Wright

Keyword(s):

Vitamin D ◽

Preschool Children ◽

Iron Deficiency ◽

Vitamin D Deficiency ◽

Complementary Feeding ◽

Healthy Diet ◽

Evidence Based ◽

Healthy Nutrition

Key nutritional issues affecting preschool children discussed in this chapter are breastfeeding, complementary feeding, and promoting a healthy diet. The evidence on iron deficiency and vitamin D deficiency is reviewed. Recommendations are made for commissioning of services to support breastfeeding, and evidence-based advice given for practitioners.

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Use of vitamin D supplements among Finnish preschool children

European Journal of Public Health ◽

10.1093/eurpub/ckx189.253 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 27 (suppl_3) ◽

Author(s):

H Vepsäläinen ◽

L Korkalo ◽

M Erkkola ◽

E Skaffari

Keyword(s):

Vitamin D ◽

Preschool Children ◽

Vitamin D Supplements

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Factors involved in the duodenal expression of the human calbindin-D9k gene

Biochemical Journal ◽

10.1042/bj3410491 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 341 (3) ◽

pp. 491-500 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

Natalie F. BARLEY ◽

S. Radhika PRATHALINGAM ◽

Pang ZHI ◽

Stephen LEGON ◽

Alison HOWARD ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Vitamin D ◽

Transcription Factors ◽

Regional Differences ◽

Calcium Absorption ◽

Receptor Protein ◽

Distal Intestine ◽

Calbindin D9k ◽

Enhancer Binding Protein ◽

Potential Binding ◽

Mcf 7

Calbindin-D9k is expressed in the cytoplasm of intestinal cells, where it is critical for dietary calcium absorption. Two striking aspects of the expression of this gene are its vitamin-D dependency and regional differences in expression, with high levels only in duodenum. We report studies of the human calbindin-D9k promoter. Differences between the reported sequences of the human calbindin-D9k promoter were first clarified before undertaking a functional analysis of this sequence. Studies of the rat gene have indicated that several transcription factors, including the caudal-related homeobox factor (CDX-2), hepatic nuclear factor-4 and CCAAT-enhancer-binding protein α (C/EBPα), could interact with elements in the promoter. Although these elements are conserved in the human gene, we show here that their intestinal distribution makes them unlikely to be critical positive factors. The calbindin-D9k gene contains multiple potential binding sites for homeobox transcription factors; one of these, known as IPF-1 or PDX-1, co-localizes in the intestine with calbindin-D9k. We show in gel-shift assays that the sequence within a putative vitamin-D-response element in the human calbindin-D9k promoter can bind expressed IPF-1/PDX-1 protein, although we cannot confirm binding of the vitamin-D-receptor protein. CDX-2 binds to the region around the TATA box, as in the rat gene, and may act as a negative factor in the distal intestine. Transfection studies in Caco-2 and MCF-7 cells with heterologous reporter vectors containing up to 1303 bp of the gene showed that this functioned as a weak promoter and indicated the presence of suppressor sequences, but did not show vitamin-D responsiveness. This indicates that other elements are also needed for the control of human calbindin-D9k expression.

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Prevalence and Predictors of Vitamin D Insufficiency in Children: A Great Britain Population Based Study

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0022179 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 6 (7) ◽

pp. e22179 ◽

Cited By ~ 102

Author(s):

Michael Absoud ◽

Carole Cummins ◽

Ming J. Lim ◽

Evangeline Wassmer ◽

Nick Shaw

Keyword(s):

Vitamin D ◽

Great Britain ◽

Population Based ◽

Vitamin D Insufficiency ◽

Population Based Study

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Regional Differences in Spatiotemporal Drought Characteristics in Great Britain

Frontiers in Environmental Science ◽

10.3389/fenvs.2021.639649 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

Author(s):

Maliko Tanguy ◽

Klaus Haslinger ◽

Cecilia Svensson ◽

Simon Parry ◽

Lucy J. Barker ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Great Britain ◽

Transition Region ◽

Regional Differences ◽

Time Window ◽

Response Times ◽

Spatial Coherence ◽

Grid Cell ◽

Extreme Drought ◽

North West ◽

Drought Characteristics

Despite being one of the most damaging natural hazards, droughts and their spatiotemporal dynamics are typically not well understood. Great Britain, which is the focus of this work, has experienced many major drought episodes in the past, causing a range of socioeconomic and environmental impacts. Here, we apply a recently developed technique to identify and characterise past droughts, using space-time connectivity to extract events from a monthly gridded precipitation dataset covering 1862–2015, without imposing fixed geographical boundaries or time-frames. For each grid cell, the data was aggregated into four new time series using moving averages over 3-, 6-, 12- and 24-month windows. These reflect a range of response times for different types of drought impacts. Drought events were then extracted for each time window separately. In order to assess regional differences in drought characteristics, each extracted drought was assigned to one of three regions: the South-East (SE), the North-West (NW) and a “Transition” region in-between them. A frequency analysis of drought characteristics (duration, area, intensity and severity) highlighted differences between regions: for short and medium accumulation periods (3, 6, and 12 months), short and less severe droughts are more frequent in the NW than in the SE, whereas long, spatially extended and more severe droughts are more frequent in the SE than in the NW. However, for long accumulation periods (24 months), fewer differences are observed between the NW and the SE. In the “Transition” region, severe droughts are less frequent than in the other two regions. A timeline of historic drought events detected by our method included the vast majority of known drought events from previous studies, with a few additional ones, and we shed important new light on the relative severity of these historical drought episodes. Finally, an analysis of the spatial coherence between regions showed that the most extreme drought events presented little spatial coherence, whereas less severe droughts tend to be more spatially coherent. This has important implications for water resources planning and drought management strategies, particularly given the increasing emphasis on inter-regional water transfers as a potential solution in situations of extreme drought.

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Role of vitamin D in pre-school children’s health

Medical Council ◽

10.21518/2079-701x-2021-1-37-48. ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 37-49

Author(s):

Irina N. Zakharova ◽

Svetlana V. Dolbnya ◽

Victoriya A. Kuryaninova ◽

Leonid Ya. Klimov ◽

Shamil O. Kipkeev ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Vitamin D ◽

Preschool Children ◽

Randomized Clinical Trials ◽

Biological Effects ◽

Daily Intake ◽

Ethnic Composition ◽

Children's Health ◽

Children’S Health ◽

Age Group ◽

Tract Infections

Vitamin D has pleiotropic effects, including maintaining calcium and phosphate homeostasis, and affecting the immune and endocrine systems. The article summarizes data on the expected biological effects of vitamin D on children’s health. The results of randomized clinical trials evaluating the effect of vitamin D supplementation on the incidence of acute respiratory tract infections are reviewed in detail. It has been shown that daily intake of vitamin D at a dose of 10 to 25 mcg/day (400–1000 IU/day) compared with placebo leads to a significant decrease in the proportion of children and adolescents who have had at least one episode of acute respiratory infection. The criteria for the provision of calciferol and the gradation of the status of vitamin D deficiency and deficiency in different countries are discussed. It has been shown that in the interpretation of the 25 (OH) D results there is a consensus on two points: calcidiol levels below 12 ng/ml (30 nmol/L) are considered clearly insufficient, and levels above 30 ng/ml (75 nmol/L) are considered sufficient in all regions. The incidence of hypovitaminosis D has been reported in children aged 3 to 7 years, where the overall combined assessment, regardless of age group, ethnic composition and breadth of the studied populations, showed that 13% of European children had a serum calcidiol concentration of less than 12 ng/ml (<30 nmol/L), and about 40% had a level of less than 30 ng/ml (<75 nmol/L). The data on the physiological need and the recommended daily dose of vitamin D for preschool children have been analyzed. In each country, the recommended intake of vitamin D is set (from 400 to 4000 IU), depending on the target concentration of serum calcidiol, the level of insolation, and nutritional characteristics. The necessity of conducting clinical studies in the age group from 3 to 7 years to determine an adequate, effective and safe preventive dose of vitamin D for preschool children in the Russian Federation is emphasized.

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