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CDC Targets Vitamin D in Preventing Childhood Asthma

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has identified asthma as the most common chronic childhood illness.  A five-year research study has been launched among pregnant women to determine whether Vitamin D supplements will prevent children from developing asthma.  The Vitamin D Antenatal Asthma Reduction Trial (VDARRT) is funded by the National Institutes of Health.

According to recent studies, Vitamin D plays some role in developing an infant’s lungs during the later part of pregnancy.  Children have an increased risk of beig born with asthma if one or both parents have asthma.  Researchers want to determine if the correction of Vitamin D levels prior to or during the pregnancy will lower the rates of asthma in children.

Recent studies have shown that fortification of food and multivitamin intake has not prevented Vitamin D deficiency in children and adults.  Although most pregnant women take prenatal vitamins, pregnant women are at high risk for Vitamin D deficiency.  That risk extends to lactating women and the children they breastfeed.

The lead investigator of the trial, Robert C. Strunk, M.D., wants to know if simply supplementing Vitamin D during pregnancy could impact children’s health by decreasing the prevalence of asthma.  Dr. Strunk is a Washington University pediatric asthma and allergy specialist at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

The study targets 870 women nationwide between 10-18 weeks of pregnancy.  The women will be randomly divided into groups.  One group will receive a standard prenatal vitamin containing 400 units of Vitamin D while the other group will receive the same prenatal vitamin and a 4,000-unit vitamin D supplement.  Participants will continue regular obstretrician visits.  Blood and urine samples will be collected, and questionnaires will be completed concerning diet, sunlight exposure, medications and other matters.  The children born will be evaluated at ages 1, 2, and 3 for asthma signs and recurrent wheezing.

Members of the collaborating team on this project include Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Boston University and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, as well as Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, located in San Diego.

         

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Baby Who Was Injected With HIV By Father Graduates

A boy who was injected with HIV by his father as a baby, will be graduating from high school this week. He has been praised for setting an inspirational example as a teen.

Brryan Jackson grew up with the daily stigma of having AIDS. He was often not invited to birthday parties, and told not to drink out of public water fountains as a child.

There was many times during his childhood that he was expected to die, and he has been on a strict medication routine daily.

Jackson contracted the virus as a 11-month-old baby in the 1990s. He had been hospitalized for asthma and his father came to visit him.

It was later discovered that father Brian Stewart had injected a syringe of HIV-tainted blood into his son.

Stewart was convicted of first-degree assault and received life imprisonment for his actions. It was believed that he did not want to pay child support for his son.

Judge Ellsworth Cundiff told Stewart at his sentencing, “I believe when God finally calls you, you are going to burn in hell from here to eternity.”

Now 18-year-old, Brryan will be graduating from his High School near St. Louis this weekend. He is now an outspoken advocate for AIDS, “I expect to break the barriers between what people think this virus is, and what it really is,” Brryan said in an Interview on Thursday.

“I hope to eliminate a lot of ignorance and change people’s minds.”

Although he is not in contact with his father, he has forgiven him, “God wants us to forgive people,”

“Am I going to make myself as low as he is? … I’ve got to be the better person.”