Vitamin D Deficiency Becoming More and More Important
Harvey Wesley, 9, has been brought up on a strictly healthy diet by his mother, eating his five fruit and vegetables a day, fresh organic food, very few eats sweets and treats, but has had four deep fillings because of serious cavities.
Despite having had a brilliant dental routine since as young as 6 months old, Harvey has already had to have four serious fillings, a number that is surprising but not unheard of, except for the fact that Harvey rarely eats sugary snacks and sweets and brushes up to four times a day.
At aged 7 he received his first filling, as well as a warning to his mother from the dentist to stop giving him sweets.
As little as a year and a half later Harvey had to return to the dentist in a terrible amount of pain, not only for another filling, but to refill his first hole which had been repaired only 18 months earlier. Because of the impeccable diet Harvey received, his mother suspected the problem was to do with some form of illness or deficiency, rather than poor eating habits or dental routine.
After doing some researching on the internet, she discovered that a lack of vitamin D can often lead to weak bones and teeth, as well as being known to cause rickets in children. She believed there was a good chance this could be the cause of Harvey’s four serious cavities and so gave him a test to check for low levels of vitamin D and when she received the results it was found that Harvey had a dangerously low level of the vitamin at 19nmol/litre. She immediately found him a supply of safe vitamin D supplements from a website.
It’s a shocking fact when we look at how much publicity eating fruits and vegetables gets, but around 50% of adults have a lack of vitamin D. Vitamin D is rarely found naturally in foods, although some have it artificially added. The main source of the vitamin is from the sun and as such levels are found to be lowest at the end of winter and at the start of spring.; or as it is in Britain, all year long.
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Chronic vitamin D deficiency is directly related to tooth loss, severe gingivitus, and increased calculus on tooth surfaces.
The correct, healthy range for circulating vitamin D is 120-200 nmol/L
IT IS NOT JUST 80 nmol/L Too little vitamin D will not achieve repletion, all important in activating the full benefit of this most potent of human steroid hormones.