TAMPA: Tripling the dose of vitamin D supplementation for babies does not make their bones any stronger by age two, according to a study in Finland published on Tuesday.

Vitamin D is essential because it helps the body absorb calcium. It is naturally produced when the skin is exposed to sunlight, but as many as 40 per cent of Europeans do not get enough of it, according to a 2016 study. Without sufficient Vitamin D, people are at risk of rickets, a weakened bone condition that may result in stunted growth and bowed legs.

Thinking that more vitamin D might be better for babies, researchers conducted a randomised clinical trial of 975 healthy infants in Finland, assigning some to receive the recommended daily dose of 400 international units (IU) of vitamin D and the rest to get 1,200 IU.

By the age of 24 months, however, they found “no difference in bone strength or incidence of infections”, said the report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics.

Noting that the majority of infants studied were not vitamin D deficient to begin with, the higher dose “provides no additional benefits for bone strength or for parent-reported incidence of infections during the first two years of life”.

Foods are commonly supplemented with vitamin D in Finland and many western countries, therefore “supplementation with 400 IU of vitamin D3 daily seems adequate to ensure vitamin D sufficiency in children younger than two”, the study concluded.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2018