Vitamin D Deficiency In Sick Kids Could Make Them Sicker

NPR's Health Blog by ELIZA BARCLAY

If you're an adult, and a relatively healthy one at that, then you've probably been confused in recent years about whether or not you're getting enough vitamin D. Indeed, a series of reports from some of the top medical institutions – including the Institute of Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – have said most adults aren't deficient, even as other top researchers have said most are.

Where there seems to be a little less controversy is vitamin D for kids, who need it to build strong bones and a strong immune system. The IOM in 2010 said children and most adults need 600 international units of vitamin D a day. The American Academy of Pediatrics has a slightly different take: It suggests kids get a lower dose — 400 IU per day — and that they take a daily vitamin to make sure they're getting it.

Now new evidence from two studies finds that not only is vitamin D deficiency common among critically ill kids, but it's also associated with the severity of their illness.

In one study published today in Pediatrics, researchers at Harvard University tested the vitamin D levels of 511 children, up to 17-years-old, who were admitted to six different pediatric intensive care units between November 2009 and November 2010.

They found that 40 percent of the sick kids they tested had less than 20 nanograms of vitamin D per milliliter of blood — meaning they were deficient. This led the researchers to conclude that kids deficient in vitamin D were more likely to be sick than kids with sufficient levels of the vitamin. The kids deficient in vitamin D were also more likely to be in the hospital longer than the other kids.

Isotonix Vitamin D with K2

Another study from researchers in Ottawa, Canada, of sick kids at six Canadian PICUs from 2005 to 2008 came to a similar conclusion.

While both groups of researchers were hesitant to blame vitamin D deficiency for making the kids sick, they called for more studies on whether giving sick kids big doses of the vitamin in the early stages of their illness might be beneficial.

In addition to supplements, vitamin D is readily available in foods like eggs and oily fish and fortified foods such as milk, cereal, orange juice, yogurt and margarine.

From Shop.com

What makes Isotonix® Vitamin D with K2 product unique?

Isotonix Vitamin D with K2 contains vitamin D3, the metabolically active form of vitamin D, along with vitamin K2, a form of vitamin K which supports vascular health and calcium utilization. Vitamin D plays an important role in bone health, heart health and immune support while working with vitamin K to support normal absorption of calcium and promote healthy arteries. Isotonix Vitamin D is the first of its kind to deliver both of these powerful vitamins with isotonic delivery.

Vitamin K is included in Isotonix Vitamin D with K2 because of its unique partnership with vitamin D. Vitamins K and D work together to support calcium absorption and utilization. Vitamin K supports the normal delivery of calcium to the bones and promotes healthy arteries.

Multivitamin supplements boost brain function, say UK researchers

Multivitamin supplements boost brain
function, say UK researchers
By Barbara Diggs, 17-Apr-2012

Taking a multivitamin supplement daily can improve cognitive performance in both children and adults, say UK researchers.

In a series of studies published in the British Journal of Nutrition, Psychopharmacology, and Human Psychopharmacology, teams of British neuroscientists investigated the effects of multivitamin supplementation on mood and cognitive function.
The researchers monitored groups of healthy children, men and women who took commercially-available vitamins and mineral supplements daily for 4 to 12 weeks, and tested their cognitive performance through tasks requiring attention, memory, accuracy and/or multitasking ability. The mood or stress levels of participants were also assessed.
Their findings indicated that vitamin and mineral supplementation improved cognitive performance after only a few weeks of supplementation.
Men taking high dose B-complex vitamins showed improved performance on cognitive tasks, were less mentally tired and showed improved vigor. Women taking multivitamin/mineral supplements were demonstrated to have increased accuracy and speed on multitasking batteries. Children, aged 8 – 14, showed increased accuracy in attention-based tasks.
“There’s been a huge research effort into the effects of one or two vitamins on cognitive function, not the effects of many,” said professor David Kennedy of the Brain, Performance and Nutrition Research Center at Northumbria University, and co-author of the studies.

Bridging the vitamin gap
These findings add to solid evidence indicating that multivitamin supplements offer significant and varied benefits. According to the UK’s National Diet and Nutrition Survey, the general population in the UK has vitamin deficiencies or insufficiencies across most vitamin groups.
“A vitamin deficiency predisposes you to diseases related to having too little of that vitamin,” said Dr Kennedy.
“The optimum level of a vitamin must be way above what you need to avoid disease. [The survey indicates that] there are people out there deficient in each vitamin group.But since most people don’t know which vitamins they’re missing...you should take multivitamins to bridge the gap and patch up whatever you’re deficient in.”

Omega-3s & cerebral blood flow, function
Multivitamin supplements aren’t the only nutrients to impact brain activity. In a study, published in Biological Psychology, Dr Kennedy and his colleagues studied whether omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids have impact on cognitive function. The research team found that healthy adults supplementing their diet daily with 1 -2 grams of fish oil containing docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) did not have improved cognitive functioning.
Nonetheless, through brain imaging techniques, they discovered that daily supplementation with the fish oil was associated with increased cerebral blood flow while subjects were engaged in cognitive tasks. “These results lend support to an emerging body of evidence which suggests that dietary DHA is influencing brain function in physiological terms,” Kennedy and his colleagues wrote.
That DHA may effect changes in blood flow that has implications for aging healthily and dementia, added Kennedy.

Professor Kennedy will be speaking about these findings and other issues relating to essential nutrients and cognitive function at the Vitafoods Europe expo and conference in Geneva on May 23.
To see the research and more associated with this article click here

Isotonix®: Shop Your Favorite Brands at SHOP.COM

The Science and

Advantage of Isotonix

Healthy supplementation is about more than just ingredients; it’s about delivery and absorption. by Dr. Jim Wilmer

The Advantage

When we eat food, drink a beverage, or ingest most nutritional supplements, the stomach must secrete diluting juices, enzymes, hydrochloric acid and at least one vitamin-binding protein to begin the process of digestion. This process requires both energy and time — about 40 minutes or more, depending on the size of the meal. Isotonix products are delivered into the small intestine nutritionally concentrated, maximizing the opportunity for absorption of nutrients across cell membranes.

What Is Isotonic?
Isotonix® is a word, and that’s all to a lot of people. What does it mean? Broken down to its roots, “iso” means “the same” and “tonic” means “pressure” or “tone.” When isotonic is used to describe solutions for human consumption, it means having the same fluid pressure as body fluids. Tears, blood, plasma, lymph and other body fluids are all isotonic.

When we ingest food, gastric (or stomach) juice is secreted onto the food and muscular contractions of the stomach mix the contents until a reasonably uniform solution is achieved. The solutions of food (or chyme) that enter the small intestine for absorption are made isotonic by the action of the stomach in a time-consuming process. The fluid pressure of food or isotonic solutions across semi-permeable membranes, such as the walls of the small intestine, is generally referred to as having a particular osmolarity or tonicity. It can be said that when solutions on opposite sides of the membrane have the same osmolarity, they are iso-osmotic or iso-tonic. Normal human blood serum (the fluid portion without cells and platelets) has an osmolarity of 288mOs/kg, as do most other fl uids in the body. Therefore, in physiological terms, when a solution’s osmolarity is the same, or nearly the same, as that of normal human blood serum, it is referred to as isotonic.

Gastric Emptying Time

Why is gastric emptying so important? The answer is simply this: the longer the supplements stay in the stomach, the longer the time before absorption can begin, because no appreciable absorption occurs from the stomach.  Why is gastric emptying time stressed when talking about Isotonix?  Because the fastest emptying time occurs when isotonic solutions enter the stomach.  When the biological sensors in the gastrointestinal tract detect that the ingested solution is isotonic and at a correct pH, the pyloric or duodenal valve at the lower end of the stomach remains open and the solution is squirted into the small intestine. Absorption of the nutrients by the intestinal mucosa then starts to occur.

Concentration and Absorption

Concentration and absorption are factors that go hand in hand for the proper use of nutritional supplements.  Concentration, the amount of nutrient dissolved in a given amount of solution, is directly related to the efficiency of nutritional absorption. It is known that the greater the concentration (as milligrams of nutrient per milliliter of solution at the absorption site), the greater

the rate and amount of absorption. Because Isotonix solutions experience little dilution in the gastrointestinal tract, they arrive at the absorption sites in high concentration to assure effi cient absorption.  Isotonix®

Jim L. Wilmer, Ph. D. is Chief Science Officer at Market America and has been employed by the company for over 15 years. He earned a doctorate from Cornell University in environmental toxicology (1991), a master of science in biolog y from East Tennessee State University (1974), and a bachelor of science from Wofford College (1972). Dr. Wilmer has 44 peer-reviewed publications in journals, including Cancer Research, Journal of Investigative Dermatology, Mutation Research, Environmental Mutagenesis, Cell Biology and Toxicology, Cytogenetics and Cell Genetics, Angiology, and Phytotherapy Research.

Omega 3s and ADHD: What You Need to Know

Omega 3s and ADHD: What You Need to Know

Author: James Moffat from Isotonix Blog

The potential health benefits of omega 3 fatty acids aren’t just limited to adults. More and more, research is finding that children could reap significant benefits from receiving more omega 3 fatty acids – especially EPA and DHA – in their diets. Over the next few weeks, the Isotonix Blog will examine research related to omega 3s and children.

The little kid who won’t sit still. The middle school student who has a hard time concentrating in class. The teenager who acts out.
While some of these characterizations might seem like mere growing pains, more and more researchers look at these as signs to a much larger – and much more preventable – problem: Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder.
What is ADHD?
Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common developmental and behavioral disorder characterized by poor concentration, distractibility, hyperactivity, and impulsiveness that are inappropriate for the child’s age.
Children and adults with ADHD are easily distracted by sights and sounds in their environment, cannot concentrate for long periods of time, are restless and impulsive, or have a tendency to daydream and be slow to complete tasks.
While ADHD has long been associated with children’s academic progress, the issues are more far-reaching. Researchers at the University of California, Berkley found that girls dealing with ADHD are “at greater risk” of abusing drugs and alcohol and having emotional problems, in addition to academic difficulties.
“The cumulative picture is that girls with ADHD are at risk for a lot of problems,” said psychologist Stephen P. Hinshaw, lead author of the study and chairman of the psychology department at Berkeley.
Children living with the disorder cope with the stigma of being labeled as hyper, lazy, unmotivated and unfocused by adults who don’t understand the problems these children must deal with. Worse yet, many of these children and their parents are told their only solution – their only chance to regain some normalcy – is to take medication on a daily basis.
The Omega 3 Connection
Research continues to suggest that omega 3 fatty acids – those essential building blocks that doctors have been recommending to adults for years – can help curb the onset and development of this disorder in children.
The connection between omega-3 fatty acid deficiency and ADHD has been confirmed by studies in which youngsters with ADHD, when compared with non-ADHD children, had much lower blood levels of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an omega-3 fatty acid necessary for normal function of the eyes and the cerebral cortex (the brain region that handles higher functions such as reasoning and memory).
One such study, conducted at the University of South Australia, called the use of omega 3s more effective than the commonly-prescribed ADHD drug Ritalin.
“Supplementation with [omega-3 fatty acids] resulted in significant improvements … of core ADHD-related behavioural and cognitive difficulties, namely inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity, with medium to large effect sizes, and also in ratings of oppositional behaviour,” the report stated. “There is no known evidence that medication provides any benefits beyond four weeks, whereas in the present trial symptoms continued to improve after 15 weeks of supplementation.”
It is estimated that as many as 10% of U.S. children have attention-deficit problems, which includes ADHD and hyperactivity. Despite this, most people get just one-fifth the amount of omega 3s – either from oily fish or other sources – recommended.
So what should parents do? First, pregnant women should make sure they are receiving enough omega 3s to help with the development of their unborn child. Post-pregnancy, parents should make sure their child receives adequate amounts of omega 3s, whether from natural sources (fish, walnuts, etc.) or from supplementation.

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• Helps maintain normal cholesterol levels
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• May help to retain low-light visual acuity