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TUESDAY, Aug. 25, 2020 (HealthDay News)<\/p>\n
Vitamin D<\/a> supplements<\/a> don’t prevent severe asthma<\/a> attacks in at-risk children, according to a study that challenges previous research.<\/p>\n “The reason that’s important is there are colleagues around this country and worldwide who are testing vitamin D<\/a> levels for kids with asthma<\/a> and giving them vitamin D<\/a>,” said study lead author Dr. Juan Celed\u00f3n. He’s chief of pediatric pulmonary medicine at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n “As a system, it costs a lot of money to run all these tests and give the supplements<\/a>. We’ve shown no benefit for children with moderately low vitamin D<\/a> levels,” Celed\u00f3n said in a hospital news release.<\/p>\n While past observational studies suggested that vitamin D<\/a> could reduce asthma<\/a>-attack severity, this is reportedly the first placebo-controlled clinical trial to assess if that’s true.<\/p>\n The three-year study included nearly 200 children, aged 6 to 16, across seven U.S. hospital systems. All had at least one asthma attack<\/a> during the year before the study began.<\/p>\n Half of the children received 4,000 IU of vitamin D<\/a> per day, and the other half got placebo pills. No one involved in the study knew which type of pill each child was getting.<\/p>\n All of the children had vitamin D levels low enough that supplements<\/a> should have had an effect if vitamin D truly is beneficial for reducing severe asthma<\/a> attacks. But kids who took the supplements<\/a> did not have fewer asthma<\/a> attacks or less reliance on inhaled steroids than those who took placebo pills.<\/p>\n The study was published Aug. 25 in the Journal of the American Medical Association<\/i>.<\/p>\n Randomized controlled studies such as this one are considered the gold standard of research.<\/p>\n Previous observational studies found that children with low vitamin D levels seemed to have worse asthma<\/a>.<\/p>\n But with “observational studies, you never know — is [low] vitamin D causing asthma to be worse or do kids with worse asthma end up having lower vitamin D?” Celed\u00f3n said.<\/p>\n — Robert Preidt<\/p>\n ![\"MedicalNews\"](\"https:\/\/images.medicinenet.com\/images\/HealthDay\/healthday.png\")
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