Vitamin D-deficiency crisis looms, researcher warns

While the nation is in the midst of a financial crisis, another crisis is looming large — a health crisis caused by vitamin D deficiency.

That message was delivered to about 55 medical researchers, nutritionists and public health officials who gathered at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building on Friday to hear from Dr. Carol Wagner, a medical researcher from the Medical University of South Carolina.

Wagner presented the preliminary findings from her current study which focuses on the role of vitamin D during pregnancy and early infant development. Even in the preliminary stages, the results of Wagner's study show profound, far-reaching implications for pregnant women, infants and the entire population as a whole.

"It's quite likely that chronic nutritional vitamin D deficiency puts all of us at risk for developing debilitating, long-latency, chronic diseases," Wagner said. "Diseases such as insulin-resistance, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and autoimmune diseases."

Wagner and her team, supported by a grant from the Salt Lake City-based Thrasher Research Fund, are currently studying the effects of vitamin D on 558 pregnant women in South Carolina. Testing at the beginning of the study showed that 81 percent of the women had either insufficient levels or were severely deficient in the vitamin, she said.

"When the woman is deficient in vitamin D, her developing fetus is deficient as well," Wagner said.

Deficiency in vitamin D can lead to serious problems during pregnancy and birth, such as impaired fetal growth, birth defects and high blood pressure, which affects both the mother and baby, a medical disorder called pre-eclampsia.

"Vitamin D is a potent stimulator of the innate immune system, which is the most primitive form of our immune system," she said. "Vitamin D deficiency is associated with a whole host of diseases."

It has long been known that the vitamin plays a key role in the body's absorption of calcium. As the body becomes deficient in vitamin D, calcium levels in the blood drop until ultimately, the body starts to leach calcium from the bones. In children and infants this calcium depletion can lead to rickets, which softens and weakens the bones.

Rickets is not only associated with skeletal abnormalities but also with respiratory infections, Wagner said.

In adults, the leaching of calcium from the bones can lead to osteoporosis, and worse still, a vitamin D deficiency can block much of the body's absorption of calcium supplements that are taken to prevent or minimize the effects of the disease, according to Wagner.

Wagner's study results, showing the majority of participants having a deficiency in vitamin D, mirrors society as a whole — the majority of Americans are suffering from some level of deficiency, she said.