Vitamin D and Child Health in the 21 st Century

619 VOLUME 48__AUGUST 17, 2011 Till few decades ago, vitamin D was thought of only in relation to bone health and calcium homeostasis. Now, medical and nonmedical fraternities across the world are getting increasingly curious and realising the potential role vitamin D plays in health and disease. There had been a rise in the rate of publication of peer reviewed articles on vitamin D in PubMed from about 100 articles per year in 1975 to >1400 in 2007 [1]. Time magazine has reported vitamin D as one of the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2007 [2]. New York Times has claimed vitamin D as a potential new miracle drug [3]. It stands at the frontline of current scientific endeavors, being a topic of greatest interest to medical researchers all over the globe. A growing body of evidence, implicating hypovitaminosis D as a risk factor for many diseases right from conception throughout lifespan, implies that awareness and management of widespread vitamin D deficiency may fetch profound future health benefits.