Vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy connected to elevated risk of ADHD

February 10, 2020

Science Daily/University of Turku

The risk of ADHD was 34 percent higher in children whose mother had a vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy than in those children whose mother's vitamin D level was sufficient during the first and second trimesters. The result was adjusted for maternal age, socioeconomic status and psychiatric history.

"Alongside genotype, prenatal factors such as vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy, can influence the development of ADHD" says MD Minna Sucksdorff from the University of Turku, Finland.

The study is the first population-level research to demonstrate an association between low maternal vitamin D level in early to mid-pregnancy and an elevated risk for diagnosed attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder ADHD in the offspring.

The study included 1,067 children born between 1998 and 1999 diagnosed with ADHD in Finland and the same number of matched controls. The data was collected before the current national recommendation in Finland for the intake of vitamin D during pregnancy, which is 10 micrograms per day throughout the year.

Vitamin D deficiency still a problem

The primary investigator, Professor Andre Sourander says that, despite the recommendations, vitamin D deficiency is still a global problem. In Finland, for example, mothers' vitamin D intake among several immigrant groups is not at a sufficient level.

"This research offers strong evidence that a low level of vitamin D during pregnancy is related to attention deficiency in offspring. As ADHD is one of the most common chronic diseases in children, the research results have a great significance for public health" says Professor Sourander.

The study is part of a larger research project that aims to discover the connections between the mother's health during pregnancy and ADHD in offspring. The goal is to produce information for developing preventative treatments and measures for identifying children with ADHD risk.

The study was done in collaboration between researchers from the University of Turku, Finland, and Columbia University, New York and it was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health NIHM (USA) and the Academy of Finland, and it is part of the INVEST flagship programme of the University of Turku.

In the study, the researchers used the exceptionally comprehensive Finnish Maternity Cohort (FMC) consisting of approximately 2 million serum specimens collected during the first and early second trimester of pregnancy.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/02/200210104120.htm

Low levels of vitamin D in elementary school could spell trouble in adolescence

August 20, 2019

Science Daily/University of Michigan

Vitamin D deficiency in middle childhood could result in aggressive behavior as well as anxious and depressive moods during adolescence, according to a new University of Michigan study of school children in Bogotá, Colombia.

Children with blood vitamin D levels suggestive of deficiency were almost twice as likely to develop externalizing behavior problems -- aggressive and rule breaking behaviors -- as reported by their parents, compared with children who had higher levels of the vitamin.

Also, low levels of the protein that transports vitamin D in blood were related to more self-reported aggressive behavior and anxious/depressed symptoms. The associations were independent of child, parental and household characteristics.

"Children who have vitamin D deficiency during their elementary school years appear to have higher scores on tests that measure behavior problems when they reach adolescence," said Eduardo Villamor, professor of epidemiology at the U-M School of Public Health and senior author of the study appearing in the Journal of Nutrition.

Villamor said vitamin D deficiency has been associated with other mental health problems in adulthood, including depression and schizophrenia, and some studies have focused on the effect of vitamin D status during pregnancy and childhood. However, few studies have extended into adolescence, the stage when behavior problems may first appear and become serious conditions.

In 2006, Villamor's team recruited 3,202 children aged 5-12 years into a cohort study in Bogotá, Colombia, through a random selection from primary public schools. The investigators obtained information on the children's daily habits, maternal education level, weight and height, as well as the household's food insecurity and socioeconomic status. Researchers also took blood samples.

After about six years, when the children were 11-18 years old, the investigators conducted in-person follow-up interviews in a random group of one-third of the participants, assessing the children's behavior through questionnaires that were administered to the children themselves and their parents. The vitamin D analyses included 273 of those participants.

While the authors acknowledge the study's limitations, including a lack of baseline behavior measures, their results indicate the need for additional studies involving neurobehavioral outcomes in other populations where vitamin D deficiency may be a public health problem.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190820130917.htm