Study: Wrong children are taking supplements

Scripps Howard

Multivitamin supplements for kids? They’re cute, they’re chewable and they’re parental insurance against the nagging guilt of three visits to a fast-food place for dinner in the past five nights.

But if a child between the ages of 2 and 17 is healthy and eating a balanced diet, they’re probably not needed.

A new study out last week from researchers at the University of California, Davis, looked at data from nearly 11,000 children and found that about a third of them had taken at least one multiple supplement in the past month.

Use was higher among children rated the most healthy, while those rated in fair or poor health were less likely to take vitamins. The results appear in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

Ulfat Shaikh, an assistant professor of pediatrics at UC Davis, said the study found that a large number of underweight children took vitamins, but “we also found that between 30 and 40 percent of children who regularly eat vegetables and drink milk are taking supplements,” which she termed “medically unnecessary.”

She noted that giving the vitamins needlessly to 2 to 4 year olds, in particular, boosts a risk of overdose in children who think the tablets are candy. Taken in large enough quantities, the supplements can have adverse effects ranging from vomiting to kidney damage.

At the same time, some children with medical conditions who might benefit from supplements are not getting them. The researchers want to do a follow-up study with parents to find out why they do or don’t give their kids vitamins.

If many healthy kids are taking supplements they don’t need, one vitamin that may be in short supply for a lot of babies — and older kids too — is vitamin D.

Pediatricians have, in the past decade, been seeing an increase in the number of babies diagnosed with rickets, a bone-softening disease, mostly in those who are exclusively breast-fed.