I didn't know I was lacking in vitamin D until I collapsed at work
0 / 46
English
中文
Watch: "My low Vitamin D levels hit me like a truck" Twenty-three-year-old Saskia Reeves-Priestley was at work when she suddenly collapsed.
（暂无翻译）
"I just felt really dizzy, really nauseous, was having heart palpitations and was really hot," she says.
（暂无翻译）
There had been no prior warning.
（暂无翻译）
Saskia, a special educational needs teacher, was a keen goalkeeper who played football four times a week and felt fit and healthy. She would later be diagnosed as vitamin D-deficient – blood tests showed her levels were "next to nothing".
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
In the UK, low vitamin rates are increasing in some age groups, external - particularly in girls and young women.
（暂无翻译）
According to data from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey, last year nearly a quarter of 11- to 18-year-olds were classed as deficient.
（暂无翻译）
Vitamin D can come from our diet, in foods such as oily fish and meat, or supplements.
（暂无翻译）
But most is made by our body when UV light in sunlight hits the skin.
（暂无翻译）
Lower levels of sunlight - depending on where in the world you live or the time of year - decrease the body's ability to produce it. Covering parts of the body and wearing sunscreen also has an impact - despite their protective advantages.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
Those with darker skin need exposure to stronger light to produce the same amount of vitamin D as lighter skin.
（暂无翻译）
Doctors don't routinely offer blood tests to check for vitamin D deficiency, but will offer a supplement if a patient is concerned they might be high risk.
（暂无翻译）
Vitamin D deficiency is linked to the bone disease rickets in babies and infants.
（暂无翻译）
In adults it causes a similar weakening of the bone called osteomalacia, external. "They call it the silent disease," says Dr Suma Uday, a paediatric endocrinologist who wants to raise awareness of the problem.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
She warns that vitamin D deficiency in young people and adults is difficult to spot and can be missed or misdiagnosed.
（暂无翻译）
Symptoms include fatigue and joint and bone pain. Uday says: "It's basically silently eating away at the bones, leaving them softened and prone to breaks."
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
Amaka Osu says she doesn't think many of her friends realise what the symptoms are Amaka was in the middle of making dinner at her university house in Liverpool when she started shaking.
（暂无翻译）
"I couldn't really see in front of me," she says.
（暂无翻译）
Her housemate took her to A&E - later she too would be diagnosed as vitamin D deficient.
（暂无翻译）
Other than feeling tired, she says she had no symptoms: "I'm a 21-year-old student. I've got work and uni - I'm always feeling tired."
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
She remembers her mother suffering from low vitamin D but says she did not realise it could happen to her. After taking supplements, Amaka feels a lot better, but she is anxious in case it happens again.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
"It was scary and I don't want to experience that again."
（暂无翻译）
Uday joins other clinicians and academics who have formed a group - ACT NOW Vitamin D - calling for the threshold at which you are classified as deficient to be raised. She says that would "catch" more people with low vitamin D and give a more accurate picture of how widespread the issue is.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
It would also mean they can treat the deficiency earlier, she says.
（暂无翻译）
Uday warns of "a lifelong deficit" in women - in adolescence, then pregnancy, and then the newborn is affected. "If you don't correct it from the very beginning," she says, "this is going to affect multiple generations."
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
Saskia Reeves-Priestley plays football four times a week - and had no previous symptoms "It's shocking," says Prof Martin Hewison, from the University of Birmingham.
（暂无翻译）
He tells me that despite being 100 years on from the discovery of vitamin D "rickets hasn't gone away".
（暂无翻译）
"If we have rickets in the community, there are going to be many more people who are vitamin D deficient."
（暂无翻译）
He says the government should look into wider fortification of food in which vitamins are added to foods during production.
（暂无翻译）
Countries like Canada and Sweden have mandatory policies.
（暂无翻译）
In the UK, some foods such as breakfast cereals and spreads are already fortified with vitamin D, but it is voluntary.
（暂无翻译）
During the winter months, people start to lose their vitamin D levels. "We might have to accept that for certain groups vitamin D supplementation is a matter of course," says Hewison.
（暂无翻译） （暂无翻译）
Saskia is now taking vitamin D supplements regularly - and is back in goal.
（暂无翻译）
Have you been affected by the issues raised in this story?
（暂无翻译）
Get our flagship newsletter with all the headlines you need to start the day.
（暂无翻译）
Sign up here.
（暂无翻译）
Doctors said I was too young to have endometriosis at 13 - I had to take morphine to cope Is 'ferritin face' a real thing - and can you really spot low iron from looks?
（暂无翻译）
Hypermobility - the little-known 'bendy disease' that causes pain and fatigue
（暂无翻译）
仅供学习使用，如有侵权请联系删除 · 查看原文