1 in 18 kids in the Ancient Roman Empire had rickets (low Vitamin D) – Aug 2018

Children in Ancient Rome had Vitamin D deficiency, study says CNN

  • “But when the researchers studied 2,787 skeletons of children and adults in 18 Roman Empire cemeteries from northern England to southern Spain, they realized that a lack of vitamin D is a longstanding issue for Europeans.”
  • “Of the skeletons studied, the prevalence of rickets in children was 5.7%”
  • “. Residual rickets was found in 3.2% of adults.”

Perhaps indoors too much - Northern Climate or apartments in Rome

Note by VitaminDWiki: What they really found was that of the kids who died, 5.6% of them had rickets.
   Many of the other kids who did not die probably did not have rickets
Note: 3.2% of adults had residual rickets,
     perhaps rickets rate for all kids was 4% (between 5.6% and 3.2 %) = 1 in 25

Latitude, urbanization, age, and sex as risk factors for vitamin D deficiency disease in the Roman Empire
PDF is available free at Sci-Hub   10.1002/ajpa.23646

VitaminDWiki

Overview of Rickets and vitamin D contains the following summary

Rate of rickets is usually < 0.1% of births, unless dark skin, breastfed, preemie, twin, Mongolian, or Russian
Rate of rickets has greatly increased with the drop in vitamin D levels during the past 40 years
400 IU can prevent/treat most rickets Turkey gave vitamin D to EVERY child and eliminated Rickets
Can have rickets without a low serum level of vitamin D (~20% of the time)
Giving enough Vitamin D to the mother (before and after birth) PREVENTS most forms of Rickets
Rate of rickets in some countries varies from 10% to 70% (typically poor health overall)
Rickets has been more than doubling in many countries
Rickets is strongly associated with severe breathing problems (weak ribs)
Bowed legs is not the primary indication of rickets    (3 other indications of rickets are seen more often)
Rickets is typically due to low cellular Vitamin D - April 2024
Some Rickets is due to poor genes - Vitamin D needed lifelong – June 2020
Vitamin D and Rickets consensus took 80 years

Rickets category has 128 items

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