Vitamin D Deficiency Can Cause Osteomalacia In Young Adults
Whilst browsing the internet today we found the following article:
30-80% of the US population may be vitamin D deficient
Fibromyalgia may be the diagnosis often given to people who experience chronic pain (bone and muscle pain) and weakness without any apparent cause.
Now to comprehend why Dr. Holick considers fibromyalgia as a possible symptom of vitamin D deficiency we need to first evaluate the known conditions associated with vitamin D deficiency.
Practically everyone has heard of rickets. It is a childhood ailment that is known to be associated with vitamin D deficiency.
Because there is not enough vitamin D present for the growing child to properly mineralize the new bones as they form, the kid ends up with soft, pliable bones. These, in turn, leads to bowed legs and several other skeletal deformities related to rickets.
Similarly, practically all of us have heard about osteoporosis.
Osteoporosis is really a demineralization of the bones that occurs in older adults (women past menopause and men over 50). The bones become very fragile and simply break.
Much research over the past decade has shown that people can think of osteoporosis like a lifelong deficiency of calcium and vitamin D (although other factors are also involved).
However, there is a third consequence of vitamin D deficiency that most people are unaware of – a condition called osteomalacia.
Osteomalacia usually occurs in young adults and it is associated with a softening of the bone. The most common characteristic of osteomalacia is chronic bone and muscle pain.
Most doctors happen to be trained to identify rickets or osteoporosis, but they haven’t been trained in how you can identify osteomalacia (our medical school is just as guilty of this as the other schools). Primarily, this happens because most experts considered osteomalacia to become
almost non-existent because of food fortification with vitamin D.
However, since we are starting to learn that 30-80% of the US population may be vitamin D deficient, it might be time to re-think this assumption.
Dr. Holick reports that 40-60% of the patients who are referred to his office with symptoms of fibromyalgia are vitamin D deficient, and people patients who are vitamin D deficient respond well to vitamin D supplementation.
Dr. Holick also called a study by Dr. Gregory Plotnikoff from the University of Minnesota that said that 93% of children and adults who arrived at his emergency room with nonspecific muscle aches and pain put together to be vitamin D deficient.
So, what is the bottom line if you or someone that you know has fibromyalgia?
I would not recommend that you think of vitamin D as a magic bullet. There are many other activities involved in fibromyalgia, for example inflammation and possible autoimmune responses. Your holistic approaches to managing your disease should cover all of the bases.
However, vitamin D supplements are cheap, simple to use and practically risk free (You would have to take huge amounts on a daily basis to develop vitamin D toxicity). If you are experiencing bone and muscle pain for no no reason, it would make sense to add some vitamin D to your daily regimen.







