A trend towardsincreased indoor living, and the growing popularity ofinner-city apartments, raise issues about potential vitamin Ddeficiency through reduced access to sunlight, University ofOtago biochemist Associate Prof Tony Merriman says.
A recent Sunday Star Times article highlightednational concerns that inner-city apartment living, withchildren playing mainly indoors, could have a raise in thenumber who were vitamin D deficient.
The head of one Auckland school said that up to half ofits more than 400 pupils lived in apartments and many hadlittle or no approach to outside recreational areas.
The most well-known illness resulting from vitamin Ddeficiency is rickets, a childhood disease marked by stuntedgrowth and ill-formed bones.
Dunedin City Council city development manager Dr Anna Johnsonsaid yesterday there was likewise a movement in Dunedin towardsincreased inner-city apartment living, but relatively fewchildren were living in such apartments.
The price of transport, and the lengthy commuting timesrequired to achieve inner-city jobs from the outlying suburbs,particularly when both parents worked, were drivers for theapartment trend in northern cities. But these were clearlynot such important factors in Dunedin, Dr Johnson said.
Prof Merriman said it was unclear precisely what effect thetrend towards inner-city apartment living in Dunedin andelsewhere was having on vitamin D levels.
However, many trends, individually not necessarily of greatsignificance, if combined were probably to answer in somepeople not getting enough vitamin D.
Now, more people worked indoors, rather than in outdoor jobsand vitamin D deficiency was "rife as a consequence of ourmodern lifestyle". Also, many new people watched televisionand played computer games rather than playing outdoors.
Vitamin D was a hormone manufactured in the trunk and one stepin its manufacture required "the comment of UV-B rays from thesun".
No comments:
Post a Comment