Rickets makes comeback among computer generation

The growth of the computer generation and changing lifestyles among children are leading to a Vitamin D deficiency and a rise in cases of rickets, medical experts have warned.

They said youngsters were spending more time indoors on their computers rather than previous generations who spent time playing outside with their friends. The two medical experts have called for Vitamin D to be added to milk and other food products. They said modern diets often lack Vitamin D and this could be a big reason - along with changing lifestyles - for the increasing health problems, in particular rickets in children. The main source of Vitamin D is sunlight, through skin exposure. But it is also present in a small number of foods, such as oily fish or cod liver oil. Writing a clinical review in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal, Professor Simon Pearce and Dr Tim Cheetham, of Newcastle University, call for a change in public health policy. More...

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