Asthma in Black Children Linked to Low Vitamin D Levels

African-American children in the D.C. area with asthma have lower levels of Vitamin D than non-asthmatic African-American children, according to a study published in The Journal of Pediatrics.


In light of another recent study which found that Vitamin D deficiency may cause prostate cancer among black men, this study provides further evidence that vitamin D plays a significant role in staying healthy.

"It's been well-documented that as a group, African Americans are more likely than other racial groups to have low levels of vitamin D," said Robert Freishtat, MD, MPH, an emergency medicine physician and the study's lead author. "But we were shocked to see that almost all of the African American children with asthma that we tested had low vitamin D levels."

For the study, researchers measured vitamin D levels in blood samples of 85 African American children with asthma, between 6 and 20 years of age and found that after adjusting for difference in age, weight, and the time of year of the testing, the odds of these kids with asthma being vitamin D deficient were nearly twenty times those of health kids. 86% of the participants with asthma had insufficient levels of vitamin D, while only 19% of non-asthmatics experienced these low levels.


"The District of Columbia has among the highest rates of pediatric asthma in the United States, and we're working to find out why," concluded Stephen Teach, MD, MPH, senior author of the study. "For African American kids with asthma, vitamin D testing and ensuring adequate vitamin D intake may need to become necessary steps in their primary care."

Sleep Duration Effects to Belly Fat in Minority Kids

Getting too little sleep or too much sleep can lead to increases in belly fat among African-American and Hispanic young adults, according to researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

For the study lead by Kristen Hairson, MD, assistant professor of internal medicain at Wake Forest Universeity School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., researchers collected information from 332 African-Americans and 775 Hispanics, 18-81 years of age. On average, participants slept for 6.7 hours each night. Less than 20% of the participants reported sleeping five hours or elss per night, 55% preported sleeping 6-7 hours nightly, and 28% averaged 8 or more hours of sleep each night.

Results of the study revealed that among those 40 years old or younger, both short and long seep durations resulted in significant increaes in body mass index (BMI), subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT), and visceral adipose tissue (VAT) fat accumulation.

"Appropriate amounts of sleep are important for maintence of healthy weight," Dr. Hairson stated. " In a group of African-American and Hispanic participants, those who slept less than this had greater increases in belly fat over a five-year period."

Proposed explainations of the findings suggest that shorter hours of sleep may promote increased caloric intake via increased hunger or by lowering energy expenditure. Additionallly, the authors suggested that it is imporant for health care providers to encourage patients to get adequate amounts of sleep.

The findings of this study was published in the March 1 issue of Sleep.