Giving children high doses of vitamin D doesn’t appear to reduce the winter sniffles, a new study has found.
Giving children high doses of vitamin D doesn’t appear to reduce the winter sniffles, a new study has found.
Dr. Jonathon Maguire, a pediatrician at St. Michael’s Hospital, led a randomized clinical trial in which 350 healthy children were given a standard dose of vitamin D drops during the winter, while another 350 got a high dose.
On average, the children who received the standard dose had 1.91 colds per winter, while the children who received the high dose had 1.97 colds, which Dr. Maguire said was of no statistical difference. His findings were published online today in the journal JAMA.
“We may have just busted a myth,” said Dr. Maguire. “More is not always better. Our findings do not support the routine use of high dose vitamin D supplementation for the prevention of wintertime upper respiratory tract infections among healthy children.”
Read more at St. Michael's Hospital
Image: Giving children high doses of vitamin D doesn't appear to reduce the winter sniffles, according to a new study by Dr. Jonathon Maguire, a pediatrician at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. (Credit: Courtesy of St. Michael's Hospital)
