Copyright
©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Pediatr. Feb 8, 2017; 6(1): 1-9
Published online Feb 8, 2017. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v6.i1.1
Published online Feb 8, 2017. doi: 10.5409/wjcp.v6.i1.1
Vitamin D deficiency/insufficiency from childhood to adulthood: Insights from a sunny country
Motti Haimi, “Clalit” Health Services, Children’s Health Center, Haifa 3502405, Israel
Motti Haimi, the Center for Evaluation of Health Promotion Interventions, School of Public Health, Haifa University, Haifa 3498838, Israel
Motti Haimi, Faculty of Medicine, Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 3525433, Israel
Richard Kremer, Department of Medicine, McGill University Health Center, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H4A 3J1, Canada
Richard Kremer, Center for Bone and Periodontal Research, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H4A 3J1, Canada
Author contributions: Haimi M and Kremer R designed the research study, reviewed the literature and wrote the article.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Motti Haimi, “Clalit” Health Services, Children’s Health Center, Neveim 18, Haifa 3502405, Israel. mottiha@clalit.org.il
Telephone: +972-4-8351654 Fax: +972-4-8351650
Received: May 21, 2016
Peer-review started: May 22, 2016
First decision: July 4, 2016
Revised: September 20, 2016
Accepted: October 5, 2016
Article in press: October 9, 2016
Published online: February 8, 2017
Peer-review started: May 22, 2016
First decision: July 4, 2016
Revised: September 20, 2016
Accepted: October 5, 2016
Article in press: October 9, 2016
Published online: February 8, 2017
Core Tip
Core tip: Vitamin D is known to be a key regulator of bone metabolism and muscle strength. Vitamin D deficiency is widely prevalent worldwide. In this article we emphasize that vitamin D status may be also related to a number of non-skeletal diseases, including cardiovascular events, cancer, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases. Obesity has also been recently associated with vitamin D insufficiency. We demonstrate that the pediatric population is also at high risks of vitamin D deficiency. Studies that investigated the status of vitamin D deficiency in Israel, which is a known multi-cultural sunny country, revealed a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency.