Pediatricians from Johns Hopkins Children's Center, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of New York, say  low levels of vitamin D may be related to anemia in children.

Researchers looked at blood samples of more than 9,400 children, 2 to 18 years of age.
Anemia and vitamin D connection in children
by Aimee Keenan-Greene
The lower the vitamin D levels, the lower the hemoglobin and the higher the risk for anemia, the researchers found.

Children with levels below 20 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml) of blood had a 50 percent higher risk for anemia than children with levels 20 ng/ml and above. For each 1 ng/ml increase in vitamin D, anemia risk dropped by 3 percent.

Anemia occurs when the body has too few oxygen-carrying red blood cells.

Doctors diagnose and track anemia by measuring hemoglobin levels.

Symptoms of mild anemia include fatigue, lightheadedness and low energy.

Severe and prolonged anemia can damage vital organs by depriving them of oxygen.

Anemia is more common in black children, but the reasons for this remain unclear, although some suspect that biologic and genetic factors may be at play.

"The striking difference between black and white children in vitamin D levels and hemoglobin gives us an interesting clue that definitely calls for a further study," said lead investigator Meredith Atkinson, M.D., M.H.S., a pediatric nephrologist at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.The new information was presented at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies this week.

Vitamind D is necessary to help the body absorb calcium and phosphorus from food, and is important for bone development.

About 70 percent of U.S. children have low levels of vitamin D, according to the CDC. Children who are severely deficient in vitamin D can develop rickets, a disorder in which the bones weaken which can lead to fractures and skeletal deformities.
  
The Rhode Island Department of Health promotes the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation that all children, including infants, get 400 international units (IU) of vitamin D per day, an amount that is not possible to get from breast milk alone.

While people can also get vitamin D from sunlight, the AAP advises that infants younger than six months avoid exposure to direct sunlight due to skin cancer risk.