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Prolonged Gaming Blamed For Rickets Rise
superapecommando writes "Too many hours spent playing videogames indoors is contributing to a rise in rickets, according to a new study by doctors. Professor Simon Pearce and Dr Tim Cheetham of Newcastle University have written a paper in the British Medical Journal which warns of the rickets uptake – a disease which sufferers get when deficient in Vitamin D. The study boils down to the fact that as more people play videogames indoors they don't get enough sunlight and this has meant the hospitals are now having to combat a disease that was last in the papers around the time Queen Victoria was on the throne." At least the kids are eating enough snacks with iodized salt that we don't have to worry about goiters.
Scurvy!
Rickets is a softening of bones in children potentially leading to fractures and deformity. Rickets is among the most frequent childhood diseases in many developing countries. The predominant cause is a vitamin D deficiency, but lack of adequate calcium in the diet may also lead to rickets (cases of severe diarrhea and vomiting may be the cause of the deficiency). Although it can occur in adults, the majority of cases occur in children suffering from severe malnutrition, usually resulting from famine or starvation during the early stages of childhood.
If you spend so much time inside playing video games that you get a case of the rickets, you've got way more problems than just vitamin deficiency.
DDrink!
A Double Dose of D along with a Double Dollop of Caffeine! Get your Dose and Drink DDrink!
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Wouldn't drinking milk resolved the Vitamin D deficiency. I do not know much about the Richet illness but what does sunlight have to do with Calcium.
Our wikipedia overlords report that the suggested daily supplementation for individuals at risk of deficiency is only 25 micrograms. Unless the risks of overdose are particularly hairy, or are encountered at a dose particularly close to the suggested one, this seems like a problem that could be fairly easily solved by slight modifications to the food supply.
Or, heck, just make console controllers whose plastics slowly leach vitamin D into the greasy, sweaty, hands of the gamer kiddies....
As a follow up to this story, apparently smoking cigarettes has also been linked to a higher chance of being diagnosed with lung cancer, heart disease and other terminal ailments
I'm going to take this with a large grain of salt here. Does the publication in the British Medical Journal actually blame the rise on gaming, or is TFA simply adding the gaming aspect to it to generate a sensational article to post on a tech site with a large demographic who plays games. TFA only has a link to the BMJ homepage.
Oh, and obligatory: correlation does not imply causation
This post may or may not contain cancer causing materials.
Expect the addition of Vitamin D to popular gamer energy drinks.
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
So gamers are going to evolve into squids?
Bullshit.
More likely the result of fear-tactic news scaring people into keeping their kids indoors 24 hours a day except for school. Playgrounds are where perverts lurk, remember? Gotta keep little Billy safe!
Of course, indoors there are videogames - but there's also books, and television. Gaming is just one possible indoor activity - if you don't let your kids outside, don't be surprised if they end up fucked up.
You need vitamin D, sunlight, and working kidneys in order to render it useful. You can get all the vitamin D you want in your diet, but without sunlight, it cannot be converted into a usable form by the kidneys. This is why they put northern Swedish and Norwegian kids under sun lamps for a few minutes every day. Thankfully, you really only need a few minutes of direct sunlight to covert enough vitamin D to last a while.
Play your video games outdoors.
So the lack of Milk fortified with Vitamin D has nothing to do with it, and thus we must blame video games rather then blame people for drinking soda. For the lactose intolerant I'm sorry, for the rest you cant have any pudding if you don't eat your meat.
This has nothing to do with the media telling everyone that we shouldn't even risk a glimpse at the sunlight without a generous slathering with SPF 2 billion sunscreen and a hat.
Correlation does not equal causation!
Don't these morons read Slashdot?! We're so much smarter than they are.
It's just unbelievable. I think, from now on, all researchers should submit an "Ask Slashdot" question and we'll answer it for them - and they can have the publishing credit. Now of course, for the peer reviewed journal, they'll have to submit data. But all the researchers have to do is just put in their cites 'Answered by the Slashdot guys." The reviewers will see that and realize that its got to be true!
My captcha is "verified" - see, the Slashdot system knows it to be true!
It's the lack of sunlight, I used to have an iguana, they required certain rations of calcium to phosphorous and a decent amount of Vitamin D in their diet, but they also required sunlight to make them active in their body. You either needed to buy a special UV lamp, which wasn't quite as effective, or get them to a window at some point during the day so they could soak up some rays.
I'm sure this works, just not how.
Sunlight is photons. Energy. Vitamin D is matter. Vitamin D can't literally be in the sunlight.
Does sunlight just cause the body to produce vitamin D, or what?
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Why are video games exclusively targeted in this? Yes, they create a pretty attractive form of indoor entertainment but the problem here isn't video games. It's the people playing them or in the case of children, THEIR PARENTS. Send the kids outside. Heck, a good video game will make a lot of kids WANT to go play outside...if only so they can emulate their favorite fictional hero of the day. The same case could be made for television, really great sex, or pretty much anything else that makes staying inside an attractive option. Give the sensationalism a rest. And if you're doing this to yourself as an adult and not climbing out of the basement bat-cave and seeing the light of day once in awhile...well then you're making a choice about your health and lifestyle. Last I recalled, being an adult involved making choices like that.
er ratios, not rations, sorry about that
http://bacteriality.com/2007/09/15/vitamind/#8
The alternative hypothesis about rickets and vitamin D that includes references to studies demonstrating rickets is caused by calcium deficiency not vitamin d deficiency.
The part of the country I'm in has been having snow, rain, wind, and hail for months. Even if I were outdoors, I wouldn't get any of this mythical "sunlight" here.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
You ! Yes, you, behind the bike-sheds... Stand still, laddie !
*Still* negative function...
Vitamin D is a prohormone, meaning that it has no hormone activity itself, but is converted to the active hormone 1,25-D through a tightly regulated synthesis mechanism. Production of vitamin D in nature always appears to require the presence of some UV light; even vitamin D in foodstuffs is ultimately derived from organisms, from mushrooms to animals, which are not able to synthesize it except through the action of sunlight at some point in the synthetic chain. For example, fish contain vitamin D only because they ultimately exist on calories from ocean algae which synthesize vitamin D in shallow waters from the action of solar UV.
Pretty much milk WITH UV radiation (sunlight) is the key.
UVB (sun through glass) does not produce the vitamin D needed.
http://dietary-supplements.info.nih.gov/factsheets/vitamind.asp
A healthy level of vitamin D in the blood should be around 60 ng/mL. In order to reach that, you'll have to supplement with the animal version of vitamin D, which is the liquid softgel Vitamin D3, and not the hard tablet D2 that's made from plant matter. If it just says "Vitamin D", chances are it's D2, and you should avoid that.
Take about 4,000 to 8,000 IU per day and you're golden. On top of that, your immune system will be able to fight off the common colds that everyone else gets each year due to D deficiency.
And don't bother trying to supplement with sun. Spending our lives in the shade has dramatically reduced our ability to convert sunlight into vitamin D.
Sources: this cardiologist and this neurobiologist
I believe that prepared foods do not use iodized salt. You only can only get it with salt in its raw granular form. Otherwise, most people would get too much iodine in their diet.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Wouldn't there also be a sizable drop in the percentages of STD's contracted, unplanned pregnancies, traffic accidents, drunk and disorderly conduct, and homicides?
I wonder if kids get any sun. I see my neighbors inside all the time, they even have an attached garage. Schools are limited recess to practice for federally mandated testing. It is little wonder that so many of the kids are little weakling(even compared to my geeks peer group).
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Most people in the USA are vitamin D deficient, and it has been linked to depression, schizophrenia, obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, autism, influenza, and more. More on getting the right level of vitamin D through using D3 gelcaps or other means:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
Or another item on that blog on blood testing if you supplement:
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/why-rda-for-vitamin-d.html
Another site:
http://www.grassrootshealth.net/
A quiz on vitamin D:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2005/09/06/test-your-vitamin-d-knowledge.aspx
"Might Influenza be Little More Than a Symptom of Vitamin D Deficiency?"
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/10/21/avoid-flu-shots-vitamin-d-is-a-better-way.aspx
Many people suggest the right amount of sun exposure may still be best, but it is hard to get. If you have darker skin and work indoors, it may be almost impossible even in summer to get enough sunlight far from the equator:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health/autism/the-black-community.shtml
http://curtisduncan.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-michelle-obama-is-more-likely-to.html
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
More on this issue:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1521046&cid=30863854
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
I've been playing video games in a "prolonged" manner for 20 years. I used to drink milk for every meal. No rickets. In fact, I still have all my teeth and have only broken two bones (the same pinky twice from various injuries during gym class).
Drink milk.
Isn't this the obvious answer? Keep your rickets in check, while enjoying your favorite game, while getting a great tan to impress that date, that you will never get . . .
. . . might as well die of rickets: Game fast, die young, leave a rickets infested corpse.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council site also calls these "Gilchrest Fractures" after a dermatologist: ...
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/newsletter/2006-nov.shtml
"""
Your son had what I call a "Gilchrest fracture." About 30 years ago, dermatologists like Barbara Gilchrest at Boston University, began telling Americans, including children, to stay out of the sun, lather on the sunblock, and to "drink milk" if they are concerned about vitamin D. The problem is that your son would have to drink at least 40 glasses of milk a day to get enough vitamin D if he followed her sun-avoidance advice and it sounds like he did.
Gilchrest fractures are vitamin D deficiency fractures in healthy people that occur after normal activities. Two studies have clearly linked such fractures to low vitamin D levels. A recent Finnish study found Gilchrest fractures to be almost four times more likely in young soldiers with vitamin D levels below 30 ng/ml (75 nmol/L). An earlier study of Israeli soldiers showed the same thing. The surprising thing about both studies was none of the men were obviously vitamin D deficient, indicating—once again—that current lower limits of vitamin D blood levels are set too low and that serum 25(OH)D levels should be maintained at 50–80 ng/ml, year-round. [Ruohola JP, et al. Association between serum 25(OH)D concentrations and bone stress fractures in Finnish young men. J Bone Miner Res. 2006 Sep;21(9):1483–8. Givon U, et al. Stress fractures in the Israeli defense forces from 1995 to 1996. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2000 Apr;(373):227–32.]
The rates of Gilchrest fractures, even in young people, have been steadily increasing over the last thirty years, since dermatologists have been handing out their pathological advice. For example, the incidence of fractured wrists in American kids went up 32% in boys and 56% in girls between the years 1970–2000. [Khosla S, et al. Incidence of childhood distal forearm fractures over 30 years: a population-based study. JAMA. 2003 Sep 17;290(11):1479–85.]
A study in Great Britain showed a clear latitudinal variation with the lowest fracture rates in sunnier southeast England and the highest rates in of Gilchrest fractures in Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. [Cooper C, et al. Epidemiology of childhood fractures in Britain: a study using the general practice research database. J Bone Miner Res. 2004 Dec;19(12):1976–81.]
The good news is that your son only suffered a broken foot by following Professor Gilchrest's advice. As you will see below, others have lost their lives.
All this leaves us with a question, "Are physicians responsible for their advice?" When dermatologists or other physicians subvert the vitamin D steroid hormone system by telling patients to avoid the sun, do they assume an affirmative duty to assess and maintain the vitamin D system they have subverted? Do they have a duty to inform their patients about relevant risks of sun-avoidance? Do they have a duty to inform their patients about relevant risks of vitamin D deficiency? How many dermatologists even bother to check vitamin D levels in their pale-as-ghost patients? How many bother to advise vitamin D supplements? If they do advise supplements, how many advise enough vitamin D to compensate for lack of sunlight? These are questions for tort lawyers.
"""
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Vitamin D in the human body is produced mostly by the effect of sunlight on the skin, which creates the version called vitamin D3 (which is the best version to supplement with, usually from fish oil in gelcaps).
Essentially, as people in industrialized countries have been spending more time indoors at home, work, or school, often at computer screens; and as people have been following well-meant advice from dermatologists to stay out of the sun; and as we all drive more instead of walk or bicycle; and as children are less allowed to roam freely outdoors through fears of stranger abductions or whatnot, we have ended up vitamin D deficient as a society. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked with a variety of issues, including cancer, depression, diabetes, obesity, schizophrenia, autism, heart disease, tooth decay, asthma, allergies, osteoporosis, and even influenza. Ironically, vitamin D deficiency may be causing even more skin cancers in office workers, because being vitamin D deficient cripples some of the immune response that prevents cancer cells from getting out of control. Modern window glass has also been "improved" to let through less UV-B rays to prevent carpet fading; so now we have faded people instead. :-(
Consider that vitamin D deficiency is related to behavioral issues like depression that can manifest themselves in different ways in children. If kids misbehaves in school, they are often denied going outside at recess into the sunshine. If kids misbehave more, they are denied being outside all summer in the sunshine because they have to go to summer school. If they are really bad eventually, then kids get set to juvenile detention and then prison where they may be mostly indoors for years. Sadly, that is a negative spiral of vitamin D deficiency. Homeschoolers at least have the option of being outdoors more and getting more sunshine.
I wrote some on that connection here:
"ADHD or lack of Vitamin D? Albany Free School connection?"
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005083.html
"I have no doubt such a play-based curriculum is a good thing and better than compulsory school for most kids. I love learner-directed education, where public schools would become more like public libraries. But, what if some of the magic with the kids labeled ADHD at the Albany Free School is that, instead of getting Ritalin, that kids who have been labeled are allowed to play outdoors in the sunlight a lot? Especially African American kids in that more northern area of the USA who will struggle more with getting enough Vitamin D at that lattitude? The Free School has an outdoor courtyard at the school kids can use when they want, and they allow kids to go to the nearby parks, plus they have some rural lands they go on field trips too."
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
You joke, but in college I was in a gaming club (as in, D&D) that got funding specifically because it provided an alternative to getting plastered on a Friday evening.
It was effective, too. We restricted our drinking to Saturday and Sunday.
Apparently Mr rape commando doesn't know the difference between an uptick (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/upticks) and uptake (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/uptake).
It is possible that some of this vitamin D deficiency disaster could have been prevented with more information sharing. As I wrote here: ...
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-October/005081.html
"""
Ryan pointed out to me the University of Wisconsin has patents related to Vitamin D. So, were people perhaps denied Vitamin D as an example of a public institution being funded by public dollars privatizing research results? Same as I can't easily see that study above on the web.
I don't know for sure, but I'd suspect most of this research is funded at least in part by public dollars.
I'm assuming, because the University of Wisconsin says they make a lot of money still from Vitamin D, that lawsuits might start flying if someone else starts using Vitamin D therapies without a license for various illnesses?
Is it possible this is a case of the patent system linked to profit-oriented non-profits damaging the health of billions of people globally? Related:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh-Dole_Act
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/03/press.htm
http://www.pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-grantmakers-and-donors-on-copyright-policy.html
If the global health care costs of treating all the diseases that have been suggested related to Vitamin D deficiency each year in whole or in part were totaled up, from flu through cancer to schizophrenia, it might total in the trillions of dollars per year in costs.
If people were somehow getting less Vitamin D because of the societal consequences of patents (including competitivenesses among researchers, but also making techniques to costly to use or delaying their widespread adoption), it is possible the the consequences of proprietary knowledge from just this one issue might have cost our global society many trillions of dollars and untold personal suffering. Enough money to fund endless researchers making more free knowledge. Meanwhile, the University of Wisconsin got a little bit bigger.
Obviously, I'm all for the Vitamin D researchers at the University Wisconsin as well as other universities getting all the resources they need to do good work. But, there may be a huge problem here with public funding strategies for research. The proprietary approach to research knowledge may literally have been costing trillions of dollars a year (in current dollars) for decades taken across the globe. For the past fifty years, at two trillion a year in excess medical costs, this might add up to US$100 trillion in excess medical costs due to such medical knowledge being proprietary and researchers not cooperating more.
Of course, then the huge public health bills are used to justify *increasing* the proprietary aspects of medical knowledge to create more artificial scarcity -- which is a tremendous and sad irony.
"""
Here is one study of the cost to Western Europe of vitamin D deficiency, and it does not even included costs for excess mental illness:
"Estimated benefit of increased vitamin D status in reducing the economic burden of disease in western Europe."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19268496
"""
Vitamin D has important benefits in reducing the risk of many conditions and diseases. Those diseases for which the benefits are well supported and that have large economic effects include many types of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, several bacterial and viral infections, and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis. Europeans generally have low serum 25-hydroxyvit
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Just throwing this out there, but the healthy level of vitamin D in the blood varies depending whether the body needs to be storing calcium in bones or removing calcium from bones (to prevent tetanus between meals, etc.) Your level of 60 ng/mL should have some variance. Also, the liver/skin stores of vitamin D are probably more important because of the relatively short functional lifetime of activated vitamin D.
Are there statistically robust data that show a reduced ability to synthesize vitamin D using sunlight. It might be possible because of restricting our cholesterol, since you need that to make the vitamin D. I am quite doubtful on this point, though.
Recommending 4,000 to 8,000 IU per day? Again, statistically robust data. That might be a good amount. It might work for you. It might work for people with impaired vitamin D metabolism. But I'm not sure it's a good GENERAL guideline. I'd want some studies on that, not just some doc's opinion.
D3 is, if I recall, more readily used by the body than D2, requiring fewer metabolic steps to be ready to use.
I would say the message is: if you're going to supplement Vitamin D, try D2 and D3 to see which works best. Try a bunch of doses to see what's helpful. Try spending more time in the sun. Whatever works best, go with that.
Above and beyond that, your post is really fishy.
There's a very nice calculator for how much sunlight you need. You might find that 30 minutes sorely underestimates your needs.
Look for fastrt, by Ola Engelsen. There seems to be multiple versions, and I'm not sure which is the latest. Some leave out Skin Type, which an important factor, but here's one with it in.
http://nadir.nilu.no/~olaeng/fastrt/VitD-ez_quartMED.html
here's a more detailed version
http://nadir.nilu.no/~olaeng/fastrt/VitD_quartMEDandMED.html
There is also an associated paper, but I'm not sure if this is the latest version
http://www.nilu.no/index.cfm?ac=publications&folder_id=4309&publication_id=16084&view=rep&lan_id=3
or maybe this
http://www.nilu.no/index.cfm?ac=publications&folder_id=4309&publication_id=9024&view=rep
Wouldn't there also be a sizable drop in the percentages of STD's contracted, unplanned pregnancies, traffic accidents, drunk and disorderly conduct, and homicides?
I suppose that would entirely depend on what you are gaming...
Well that might be something they can actually legitimately blame on gaming instead of all the crap they normally blame on it.
Shadus
Parents, yet again, are the true problem. If these kids weren't gaming, they'd be chatting on the computer or watching tv or just playing in their bedroom because parents won't let them outside since there are paedophiles on every street corner. Having both parents working also stops kids from getting out because no one is there to watch them when they're out or even to ensure they go out rather than stay inside all day.
some one needs to shoot mr burns!
After a little Googling I'm finding many "full spectrum" CFL bulbs the makers of which claim will help your body produce Vitamin D.
...because they live in England.
I thought most building windows block a substantial amount of UVB, so staying indoors isn't a good option.
Bullshit. Do you have any idea what the average salary in this country is? What the cost of housing is? Tell me how a family of four can survive on $32,000 a year, please. Tell me where you can find a suitable dwelling for four for under $800/month, in a place that actually has jobs? You and I may be able to pull it off, hell, I DO pull it off, my wife doesn't work, and we don't have to cut back on anything, but for most people, a single breadwinner is a pipe dream.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I agree that the OP point on sunlight not being good enough is fishy, although on a practical basis you are just not going to get enough vitamin D from sunlight living the typical mostly indoor life in the Western world. But, the OP does indirectly bring up a cutting edge area of research about what is normal vitamin D levels and how have humans evolved in different settings to process different levels of vitamin D (like in the plains, the forest, the seashore, and the frozen icy wastes of the ice ages, and with different skin pigmentation in each setting). So, there remain a lot of unknowns.
But, the rest of it as far as recommendations is legitimate according to the emerging science, even if there are, as you suggest, caveats that for some few people with rare diseases issue that may be made worse by supplementing.
You can find a vast amount of scientific papers at this site:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/
Here is one 2009 study that is there:
"Vitamin D for Cancer Prevention: Global Perspective"
http://www.oncologystat.com/journals/review_articles/AEP/Vitamin_D_for_Cancer_Prevention_Global_Perspective.html
"RESULTS/CONCLUSIONS: It is projected that raising the minimum year- round serum 25(OH)D level to 40 to 60 ng/mL (100–150 nmol/L) would prevent approximately 58,000 new cases of breast cancer and 49,000 new cases of colorectal cancer each year, and three fourths of deaths from these diseases in the United States and Canada, based on observational studies combined with a randomized trial. Such intakes also are expected to reduce case-fatality rates of patients who have breast, colorectal, or prostate cancer by half. There are no unreasonable risks from intake of 2000 IU per day of vitamin D3, or from a population serum 25(OH)D level of 40 to 60 ng/mL. The time has arrived for nationally coordinated action to substantially increase intake of vitamin D and calcium."
For most people in industrialized countries who spend most of their time indoors, to get that level, you have to supplement in the range the OP mentioned. However, as Dr. Cannell of the Vitamin D Council suggests,
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
you need periodic blood testing to be sure you are getting the right amount. Here is another blog entry from the blog the OP mentioned on this too;
http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/why-rda-for-vitamin-d.html
Another resource:
"A Consortium of Scientists, Institutions and Individuals Committed to Solving the Worldwide Vitamin D Deficiency Epidemic"
http://www.grassrootshealth.net/
They have been coordinating blood test results with supplementation levels.
Experts still disagree about the best level for vitamin D in the blood, but in general, it is way higher than what most people have. Here are Dr. Mercola's suggestions, which are close to Dr. Cannell's , but higher than the Grass Roots Health groups:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2002/02/23/vitamin-d-deficiency-part-one.aspx
Dr. Mercola suggests sunlight is the best source.
An audio interview with Dr. Cannell on some of these issues:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/audio/dr-cannell-one-radio-network-interview-11-12-09.mp3
Like everything, there are probably limits to this advice. In that radio interview Dr. Cannell mentions one person (Trevor Marshall) who disagrees. Here
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
LCD / Plasma / CRT tubes that radiate the appropriate UV spectrum to trigger Vitamin D synthesis in human skin. Just make sure no one gets extra crispy.
We don't need no education http://vitamind.ucr.edu/milk.html
We don't need more sunlight, we just need brighter TVs and monitors!
"Video games may not be the best choice to do it with"
Wii sports could be replaced by like, actual, sports. 1st person shooters could be replaced by paint-ball. Donkey Kong is based on a real-life love story. :)
What they don't say here is that it is black immigrants to England that are most at risk. Pale white children can get enough from just a few minutes of exposure every day, like walking to school, even with only their faces exposed. Black kids need a lot more exposure to the sun.
A Trip to the doctor recently found that my blood work was great, except for a SERIOUS vitamin D shortage. Now I have to take 2000Mg of Vitamin D a day. Considering my free time consists of "World of Warcraft" this isn't too surprising. But I'm 45 years old. When I was a kid I had an actual life and a decent diet. If my vitamin D levels had been this low at 12, my bones would have been like soft cheese. How hard is it to force some vitamins into your kid? We were raised by a single parent, and somehow she still managed to make us take a multi-vitamin. I can't get over the fact that there are people who would never dream of missing an oil change on their car who can't see to it that their kid gets a vitamin supplement every day.
we are old games fans
before xbox and wii were brands
and our legs aren't bowed
and our faces have tans
it has something to do with having to walk barefoot 3 miles in the snow to school i understands
Was it due to all their 'industriousness'?
Rickets is caused by eating trash. Over generations. From being a baby (artificial milk) to growing old.
With what we eat, it’s a wonder, and proof of the robustness of nature, that we can still reproduce and survive!
I’ll make the following statement: >90% of what we eat nowadays, can’t be classified as “food” anymore.
Much less as species-appropriate.
It’s already known, that most so-called “age-related” diseases actually are coming with age, not because of age. Like hair loss, bad sight, blood pressure, multiple bone diseases, etc, etc, etc.
And by “known”, I mean studies over 30 years, with more than 30,000 patients.
(Most studies, which always go maybe a couple of years, can’t find anything because it’t a very long-term effect.)
So I blame bad food, until proven otherwise.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.