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Vitamin D is an important part of promoting health and has many important functions in the body. Its reserves are passed from mother to baby in the womb and it helps regulate processes including brain development.
New study has shown that mothers’ vitamin D levels during pregnancy are linked to their children’s IQ, indicating that higher levels of solar vitamin D during pregnancy can lead to higher IQ scores in children .
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Melissa Melo, lead author of the study and research scientist in the Division of Child Health, Behavior and Development at the Seattle Institute for Children’s Research, says vitamin D deficiency is common in the general population as well as in pregnant women, but note that black women are at greater risk.
Milo said she hopes the study will help health care providers address the disparities between women of color and those most at risk of developing vitamin D deficiency.
She added, “Melanin protects the skin from sun damage, but by blocking UV rays, melanin also reduces the production of vitamin D in the skin. For this reason, we were not surprised to see high rates of vitamin D deficiency in black pregnant women in our study. Although many pregnant women take a prenatal vitamin, this may not correct a vitamin D deficiency.
“I hope our work will raise awareness of this problem, show the long-term effects of prenatal vitamin D on babies and their neurocognitive development, and highlight that there are certain groups that health service providers should lend more to. attention, including black women, ”she added.
According to Milo, up to 80% of black pregnant women in the United States may be deficient in solar vitamins. The levels were lower in black women compared to white women.
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And Melo and his co-participants used data from a group in Tennessee called the Study on Conditions Affecting Neurocognitive Development and Early Learning (CANDLE).
CANDLE researchers recruited pregnant women to join the study starting in 2006 and gathered information over time about the health and development of their children.
After controlling for many other IQ-related factors, higher levels of vitamin D during pregnancy were associated with higher IQs in children aged 4-6.
While observational studies like this cannot prove causation, Mello believes their findings have important implications and warrant further research.
“Vitamin D deficiency is very common. The good news is that there is a relatively simple solution. It can be difficult to get adequate amounts of vitamin D from the diet, and no one can make up for this discrepancy in s. ‘exposing to the sun, so the solution is,’ Melo said. The good thing is to take a supplement. “
The recommended daily intake of vitamin D is 600 international units (IU). Foods with higher levels of solar vitamins include fatty fish and eggs, as well as fortified sources such as cow’s milk and breakfast cereals. However, Milo notes that vitamin D is one of the most difficult nutrients to get in adequate amounts from our diet.
More research is needed to determine optimal vitamin D levels during pregnancy, but Milo hopes this study will help develop dietary recommendations for pregnant women. Dietary supplementation and screening can be an effective strategy to reduce health disparities, especially among black women at high risk for vitamin D deficiency.
Source: Science Daily
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