10.01.09
Researchers have received a $2.2 million grant to explore the role vitamin D plays in children’s health and the appropriate dose children should take to maintain healthy levels. Awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the grant comes on the heels of an August report in the journal Pediatrics, which showed 60% of children and adolescents had insufficient levels of vitamin D. During the two-year study, Rick Lewis, professor of foods and nutrition in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences and fellow UGA researchers Emma Laing and Dorothy Hausman will collaborate with researchers at Purdue University in providing varying doses of vitamin D supplements to boys and girls ranging in age from nine to 13. One goal of the new study is to determine if African-American children and white children respond differently to oral supplements of vitamin D. Researchers will look at several biochemical measures of bone health, including calcium absorption, to determine the appropriate dose of vitamin D supplements children need to ensure that they grow up with strong, healthy bones.