Research: Use of Vitamin D in Clinical Practice

Vitamin D therapy (by oral vitamin or sun) may help the symptoms of autism as well as muscle weakness and common winter colds.

This review article describes the use of vitamin D therapy. The authors believe that people with autism should have vitamin D levels between 55 and 70 ng/mL year round. This is about twice the level commonly found during the winter in people living in the United States. They wonder whether one of the causes of the increased rate of autism may be from lack of vitamin D because people (pregnant women and children) avoid the sun. They note that vitamin D acts on most tissues of the body and may be able to prevent autism. Treatment with vitamin D needs to be followed by a doctor because it is hard to know whether or not a given vitamin dose taken by mouth will cause a certain blood level.