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Show I WHAT to EAT and WHY C. Houston Soudiss Asks How Do You Get Your Vitamin D? Relates Need for and Sources Of This Necessary Vitamin By C, HOUSTON GOUDISS THERE is scarcely a mother of a young baby today who has not at one time or another been told to give her child cod-liver oil. Perhaps she does not know this substance must be given to the baby for the vitamin D that it contains. But she has heard that there is something in cod-liver oil which makes it valuable to the baby's health. A generation ago, cod-liver' oil was given to children in the winter time, "to build them up" after colds or various other respiratory illnesses. It was not until 1921, however, that a long series of painstaking painstak-ing investigations, terminating terminat-ing in the discovery of vitar min D, made it clear that cod-liver oil is valuable as a source of vitamin D, and also why this vitamin is essential in the diet of growing children, chil-dren, as well as adults. Discovery of Vitamin D After years of patient work and many thrilling and dramatic experiments, ex-periments, seven ' ";.' -"J forms of vitamin D I ' nave been revealed i - , by science. And $? tt scientists have also R: ' j solved the mystery I ' 8 of bow such widely " t sL F separated factors as 1L t i cod-liver oil; sun- rKr light; a diet that is r $ rich in, and care-: care-: fully balanced with i jl & calcium -and phosphorus; phos-phorus; and ultraviolet ultra-violet light, all can perform the same service for the body. Readers of this column may have observed that the discovery of a number of the vitamins came about chiefly through the efforts of investigators to discover a method of treating or curing obscure nutritional nu-tritional diseases. In most instances, in-stances, however, carefully controlled con-trolled laboratory experiments played their part in reaching the ultimate goal after some clue had been found as to what the mysterious myste-rious substance might be that helped to control a baffling nutritional nutri-tional disease. The discovery of vitamin D was no exception! Vitamin D and Rickets Vitamin D is associated intimately inti-mately with the prevention and cure of rickets, the most devastating devastat-ing nutritional disease of children in temperate climates. Indeed, it is the moderate, and in some cases the small amount of sunshine in the temperate zone that accounts partially for the presence of rickets. Historians have given us reason to believe that this disease may have existed in England even before be-fore the Roman conquest. Certainly Cer-tainly it appeared in a serious form, both in England and in other North European countries, in the Seventeenth century. In fact, early literature refers to it as the English Eng-lish disease, and the early attempts at-tempts to fathom its causes were written in Latin by English and Dutch doctors during the 1600's. In rickets, the child's head grows large and out of proportion to the body, while the leg and arm bones, and in severe cases even the ribs, are bent and twisted out of their normal shape. Need for Calcium and Phosphorus The two principal minerals required re-quired for constructing the bones and teeth are calcium, obtained chiefly from milk, cheese and green leafy vegetables, and phosphorus, phos-phorus, found in generous amounts in eggs, whole grain cereals and dried legumes. But one of the things that made it so difficult for scientists to determine the cause of rickets was the fact that apparently appar-ently well fed children, who had plenty of calcium and phosphorus, frequently developed the disease. Mystery of Cod-Liver Oil Cod-liver oil had been used for many years because of its supposedly sup-posedly "tonic" or "building" properties, when it was observed that regular doses of cod-liver oil not only cured rickets in children, chil-dren, but also cured the corresponding corre-sponding disease in adults, called osteomalacia, in which the bones become soft as the calcium and phosphorus already deposited in them are withdrawn and excreted. Fat and Vitamin D One of the strangest paradoxes to the scientists in their early investigations was the fact that while cod-liver oil appeared to cure rickets, another substance high in t fat butter fat, did not. More research re-search work was necessary before it was discovered that while butter but-ter was rich in vitamin A, cod-liver cod-liver oil contained two vitamins, one of which was later named vitamin D. Effect of Sunlight More work was necessary and it took years of patient effort before be-fore science unraveled the mystery mys-tery of how sunlight could have the same apparent effect in preventing pre-venting rickets as cod-liver oil. Once nutritionists understood how sunlight acting on a fatty substance sub-stance in the skin could produce vitamin D, however, it was not difficult to carry the process a step further and learn how to fortify forti-fy foods with a satisfactory content con-tent of vitamin D. Today we have at our disposal irradiated milk, or milk to which a vitamin D concentrate has been added. Margarine, too, has been enriched not only with vitamin D, but with vitamin A so that this moderate-priced spread for bread has been made an effective vitamin vita-min carrier. Natural Food Sources of Vitamin D The richest natural sources of vitamin D are the fish-liver oils, including the liver-oil of the tuna, swordfish, rock fish, salmon, halibut, hali-but, mackerel, cod and haddock. The body oils of many fish also furnish substantial amounts. That accounts for the fact that canned salmon has been regarded as such a splendid food in the diet of children chil-dren and adults. It is not only a good source of protein and of energy en-ergy values, but it contains substantial sub-stantial amounts of the minerals, calcium, phosphorus and iodine, and has been found to be an unusually un-usually good food source of vitamin vita-min D. Egg yolk contains small amounts of vitamin D, and when eaten regularly, the quantity is-enough is-enough to have a significant effect ef-fect in the diet of children. Vitamin D Requirements So important is vitamin D considered, con-sidered, that the United States Children's Bureau advises that cod-liver oil or some other form of this vitamin be supplied to all babies, beginning at the age of two or three weeks. Mothers should be guided by the advice of their physician in determining de-termining when to start the use of a vitamin D preparation and what quantities to give. But if they want to give their babies the blessing bless-ing bestowed on them by the scientists sci-entists who discovered vitamin D, they must not overlook this important impor-tant substance. As guardians of the health of both children and adults, mothers should see to it that vitamin D is supplied regularly through the use of eggs and salmon; irradiated irradi-ated foods and those fortified with vitamin D; and if necessary, fish-liver fish-liver oils or concentrates. |