New research provides evidence for a link between vitamin D insufficiency and asthma severity.
Serum levels of vitamin D in more than 600 Costa Rican children were inversely linked to several indicators of allergy and asthma severity, including hospitalizations for asthma. The children with asthma living in the Central Valley of Costa Rica, a country known to have a high prevalence of asthma.
They found that children with lower vitamin D levels were significantly more likely to have been hospitalized for asthma in the previous year, tended to have airways with increased hyperreactivity and were likely to have used more inhaled corticosteroids, all signifying higher asthma severity. These children were also significantly more likely to have several markers of allergy, including dust-mite sensitivity.
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Chapter: Asthma,Vitamins :: 27 July 2009