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Taking Vitamin D supplements in early childhood may ward off the development of type 1 diabetes in later life, new research in the Archives of Disease in Childhood reveals.

Type 1 diabetes is a disorder that develops in early infancy or childood, in which the pancreas stops producing insulin.

When we eat, carbohydrates are turned into glucose or sugar and used by the body for energy. The pancreas produces a hormone known as insulin that manages the body’s blood sugar and moves it throughout the cells – but in Type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks and destroys the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, for reasons that cannot be explained.

When the pancreas stops producing insulin, glucose remains in the blood stream instead of being transported to the cells. This can have serious consequences for the body’s organs - it can even be fatal and can result in blindness, arm and leg amputation (caused by nerve damage), heart disease and kidney failure. Shockingly, about 1 in 7 of all deaths in the UK are caused by diabetes – that’s about 33,000 deaths every year, and many could be avoided by proper management of the condition, according to Diabetes UK. People with type 1 diabetes need to inject insulin to regulate glucose and check their blood sugar levels several times daily in order to function properly and stay alive.

It is estimated that new cases will have risen 40% between 2000 and 2010.

Now, the new study’s results show that children given additional vitamin D are around 30% less likely to develop type 1 Diabetes compared with those not given the supplement.

And the higher and the more regular the dose, the lower was the likelihood of developing the disease, the evidence suggested.

Levels of vitamin D, and sunlight, from which the body manufactures the vitamin, have been implicated in the risks of developing various autoimmune disorders, including multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis.

And there is a striking difference in the incidence of type 1 diabetes according to levels of sunlight exposure, with a child in Finland 400 times more likely to develop the disease than a child in Venezuela, say the authors.

To find out why Vitamin D has also been shown to prevent physical disability in the elderly, Click Here.