WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - Rickets, a disease associated with the factory sweatshops
and dark, polluted skies of the Industrial Age, could be making
a comeback among some groups of Americans, researchers said on
Friday.
A team at
the University of North Carolina said they had noted a marked
increase in the number of rickets cases, especially among African-American
infants.
They believe
mothers are not getting enough vitamin D during pregnancy -- both
because of a lack of sunlight and because they are not getting
fortified foods -- and setting their babies up for deficiencies.
``We reported
30 cases of rickets in the last six years or so,'' Dr. Ali Calikoglu,
assistant professor of pediatrics, said in a telephone interview.
``Almost half
of them were in the last year, 1998-1999. That suggested to us
that there may be an increase. Interestingly enough, all of the
cases were infants of African-American mothers and all of them
had been breast-feeding exclusively in the first six months of
life.''
Rickets is
caused by a lack of vitamin D, which the body produces naturally
when bare skin is exposed to sunlight.
It causes
a loss of calcium in the bones, which in turn leads to the characteristic
bowed legs, enlarged wrists and other deformities of rickets,
as well as a failure to thrive.
``Other, more
serious, consequences of rickets would be seizures due to low
serum calcium levels,'' Calikoglu said.
He said the
condition was usually easily treated with supplements.
``If you treat
them appropriately, most of the bone deformities would improve,''
Calikoglu said. ``But if the diagnosis is made late, and treatment
is not appropriate, some of the deformities might need surgical
correction.''
Prevention,
he said, was simple. Take the babies out in the sun a little and
give them supplements, which are available as oral formulations.
Pregnant women
should take prenatal vitamins and should get a little sun, as
well. Studies suggest that just 10 minutes a day of exposing the
arms and forearms to direct sun will do the trick for a light-skinned
woman, although not at northern latitudes in winter. Dark-skinned
people may need more but little scientific study has been done.
Dr. Henry
Kirkman, a pediatrics professor who helped lead the study, said
late 20th-century habits may put people at risk of rickets. ``For
the past million years, people didn't spend a lot of time watching
television in homes with central heating and central air conditioning,''
he said in a statement.
The name rickets
evokes images of Victorian-era sweatshops, where children labored
from before dawn to well past dusk.
The lack of
sunshine, combined with skies darkened by industrial pollution,
made vitamin D deficiency common in the 1800s and early 1900s
in developed countries.
``Rickets
is a 19th-century disease,'' Calikoglu said.
``Since the
1930s in the United States, dairy products and wheat products
are fortified with vitamin D. It helped to almost eradicate rickets
in North America and most Western European countries.''
But, he said,
it can still be a problem in some developing countries, such as
in his native Turkey. ``I have seen many cases of rickets in Turkey,
not because of a lack of sunlight but because mothers preferred
using unfortified cow's milk. It was cheaper.''
Calikoglu
also noted that in Islamic societies where women are required
to cover up, they can become vitamin D deficient.
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