As Canadians brace for 鈥渧itamin D winter鈥� 鈥� months when the sun鈥檚 angle is too low to produce the vitamin in the skin 鈥� a 香蕉视频 study explains why vitamin D deficiency early in life is associated with a higher risk of autoimmune diseases.
During childhood, the thymus helps train immune cells to distinguish between the body鈥檚 own tissues and harmful invaders. A vitamin D deficiency at that stage of life causes the thymus to age more quickly, the researchers discovered.
While previous research early in the pandemic suggested that vitamin D cuts the risk of contracting COVID-19, a new study from 香蕉视频 finds there is no genetic evidence that the vitamin works as a protective measure against the coronavirus.
"Vitamin D supplementation as a public health measure to improve outcomes is not supported by this study. Most importantly, our results suggest that investment in other therapeutic or preventative avenues should be prioritized for COVID-19 randomized clinical trials," say the authors.
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Supplement given during first year of life critical for muscle-mass development
A healthy intake of vitamin D in the first year of life appears to set children up to have more muscle mass and less body fat as toddlers, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatric Obesity.
The findings emerged from research initially aimed at confirming the importance of vitamin D for bone density. The additional benefit in terms of body composition came as a surprise for the research team.
By Fergus Grieve,听McGill Newsroom
Supplement given during first year of life critical for muscle-mass development
A healthy intake of vitamin D in the first year of life appears to set children up to have more muscle mass and less body fat as toddlers, according to a new study published in the journal Pediatric Obesity.
Low levels of vitamin D significantly increase the risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a study led by Dr. Brent Richards of the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital, and published in PLOS Medicine. This finding, the result of a sophisticated Mendelian randomization analysis, confirms a long-standing hypothesis that low vitamin D is strongly associated with an increased susceptibility to MS. This connection is independent of other factors associated with low vitamin D levels, such as obesity.
Taking a calcium supplement of up to 1,000 mg per day can help women live longer, according to a study whose lead author was Lisa Langsetmo, a Ph.D. Research Associate at 香蕉视频, and whose senior author was Prof. David Goltzman, Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism in the Department of Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine and researcher in the Musculoskeletal Disorders axis at the Research Institute of the 香蕉视频 Health Centre (RI-MUHC).Their findings are published in the听Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism听(JCEM).
Vitamin D is crucial to the growth of healthy bones. It is especially important that babies get enough of it during the first twelve months of their lives when their bones are growing rapidly. This is why health care providers frequently recommend that parents give their babies a daily vitamin D supplement. But how much vitamin D should babies be given?
A team of researchers at 香蕉视频 have discovered a molecular basis for the potential cancer preventive effects of vitamin D. The team, led by McGill professors John White and David Goltzman, of the Faculty of Medicine鈥檚 Department of Physiology, discovered that the active form of vitamin D acts by several mechanisms to inhibit both the production and function of the protein cMYC. cMYC drives cell division and is active at elevated levels in more than half of all cancers. Their results are published in the latest edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
