Mental health of children: vast majority of studies reviewed found that vitamin D helped – March 2021

The Influence of Vitamin D Intake and Status on Mental Health in Children: A Systematic Review

Nutrients. 2021 Mar 16;13(3):952. doi: 10.3390/nu13030952.
Dominika Głąbska 1, Aleksandra Kołota 1, Katarzyna Lachowicz 1, Dominika Skolmowska 1, Małgorzata Stachoń 1, Dominika Guzek 2

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A potential role of vitamin D in some components of mental health is currently suggested, but the analyses are conducted mainly for adults, while for young individuals mental health is especially important, due to its lifelong effects. The aim of the study was to analyze the association between vitamin D intake or status and mental health in children within a systematic review of literature, including both intervention and observational studies. The literature search was conducted according to the PRISMA guidelines and it covered peer-reviewed studies included in databases of PubMed and Web of Science until October 2019. The studies presenting either vitamin D intake, or vitamin D status in human subjects were allowed (excluding subjects with intellectual disabilities, eating disorders and neurological disorders), while for mental health the various methods of assessment and wide scope of factors were included. The bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS). The review was registered in the PROSPERO database (CRD42020155779).
A number of 7613 studies after duplicate removing were extracted by two independent researchers, followed by screening and assessment for eligibility, conducted by two independent researchers in two steps (based on title and abstract). Afterwards, the full texts were obtained and after reviewing, a number of 24 studies were included. The synthetic description of the results was prepared, structured around exposure (vitamin D supplementation/status) and outcome (components of mental health).
The included studies were conducted either in groups of healthy individuals, or individuals with mental health problems, and they assessed following issues:

• behavior problems,
• violence behaviors,
• anxiety,
• depressive symptoms/depression,
• aggressive disorder,
• psychotic features,
• bipolar disorder,
• obsessive compulsive disorder,
• suicidal incident,
• as well as general patterns, as follows:
  • mental health, level of distress, quality of life, well-being, mood, sleep patterns.

The vast majority of assessed studies, including the most prominent ones (based on the NOS score) supported potential positive influence of vitamin D on mental health in children. As a limitation of the analysis, it should be indicated that studies conducted so far presented various studied groups, outcomes and psychological measures, so more studies are necessary to facilitate comparisons and deepen the observations. Nevertheless, vitamin D intake within a properly balanced diet or as a supplementation, except for a safe sun exposure, should be indicated as an element supporting mental health in children, so it should be recommended to meet the required 25(OH)cholecalciferol blood level in order to prevent or alleviate mental health problems.
From PDF
The summary of observations and conclusions for included studies of association between vitamin D and mental health, with the total NOS score are described in Table 10. It was observed that for the vast majority of included studies, both intervention and observational ones, the results supported beneficial association.
Only in case of 2 studies, no effect of vitamin D was stated for bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder [51] and mental health (assessed using DSM-V criteria) [55].
In case of three studies the effect of vitamin D was inconclusive, as it was observed only for some of applied analysis [50,60] or depending on the studied component of obsessive compulsive disorder [52]. However, while the total NOS score is taken into account, it should be indicated that all the studies of low risk of bias support the positive effect of vitamin D [47,62,63].