Hey Friends and Family....

I need to take a moment to brag... For my A&P class we have to write 3 responses to articles within the health field that relates to what we are currently learning. The catch is once someone has used a specific article it can't be reused. UGH! Below is the response and the article I chose to write about. I will admit I had some concern that my professor wouldn't see the correlation between the article I chose...and I didn't spend a whole lot of time on the response. LAZY!!! I know...but it was late and due and my brain hurt. Anyways... We got our grades. 50/50... 100%. YIPEE!! My professor also made an announcement to the class in which she said "Real Life Articles Graded

October 8, 2009 3:10 PM

One of the things I like about the Real Life assignments is that I learn things too. A couple articles that stand out are the One about HIV transmission in Vit. D deficient pregnant women, and the link between pattern baldness and coronary disease (testosterone link). The quality of assignments turned in was very high, good job!"

Please notice that my article is the one about VIT D deficient pregnant women and HIV transmission. YEA!!! I feel soooooo excited...and a bit like the teacher's favorite right now. :-)

Thought you all would be proud of me....

Ok...now back to studying I go. Test 2 tomorrow.

The ARTICLE:

From Reuters Health Information

Low Maternal Vitamin D Increases Risk of HIV Transmission to Offspring

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Sep 08 - In HIV-infected pregnant women, low levels of vitamin D are linked with a higher risk of virus transmission during pregnancy or breastfeeding, and also with an increase in infant mortality.

These findings are from a study in Tanzania that appears in the October issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

"Vitamin D has been shown to improve cell-mediated immunity, phagocytic capacity of macrophages, and the cytolytic activity of natural killer cells," Dr. Saurabh Mehta from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston told Reuters Health by email.

As a part of a clinical trial on the role of multivitamin supplements during pregnancy, Dr. Mehta and colleagues in Dar es Salaam evaluated outcomes of 855 offspring of HIV-infected women. Maternal 25 hydroxyvitamin D levels were estimated during pregnancy, and HIV tests were done in offspring at regular intervals. Vitamin D levels below 32 ng/ml were considered to be low.

Among babies born to the women with low vitamin D levels, HIV infection rates were 10.7% at birth, 21.7% at 6 weeks, and 35.2% at 2 years, Dr. Mehta and colleagues report. Corresponding infection rates in offspring of women with adequate vitamin D were 6.5% at birth, 16.3% at 6 weeks, and 27% at 2 years.

On multivariate analysis, low maternal vitamin D was linked with a 50% higher risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV at 6 weeks, a 200% higher risk of transmission during breastfeeding to babies who were uninfected at 6 weeks, and a 46% higher overall risk of acquiring HIV infection.

Furthermore, the investigators found, the children born to the HIV-infected women had "a 61% higher risk of dying during follow-up."

"By virtue of its ability to improve both innate and adaptive immunity in the mother and by helping in the development of the fetal immune system, vitamin D may help lower the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV," Dr. Mehta postulates.

While recommending further studies, Dr. Mehta concluded that "vitamin D supplementation may represent a low-cost method to reduce child mortality and to help decrease mother-to-child transmission of HIV as an adjunct to anti-retroviral therapy."

J Infect Dis 2009;200:1022-1030.

MY RESPONSE:

This article, originally written in September 2008, talks about pregnant women infected with HIV and how their vitamin D levels can affect whether or not they have a high risk of transmitting HIV to their babies. The article references a study done in Tanzania that looked at pregnant women with both low vitamin D levels and normal vitamin D levels. Those with a low vitamin D level had an almost 50% higher risk or transmitting HIV to their babies, which increased greatly to a 200% increase when they breastfed. The article concludes that vitamin D supplementation may help to decrease the risk of HIV transmission in pregnant women.

This article applies to the last unit because we talked about how skin produces a vitamin D precursor. This occurs when the skin cells are exposed to natural sunlight. Vitamin D can also be found in pill forms, as mentioned in the article, and can be a substitute to natural vitamin D production when people do not get into the sun enough to get the vitamin D necessary to prevent HIV transmission.

Personally I think if people would relax on the skin cancer panic and spend some time outside in the natural sunlight, before applying sunscreen there wouldn’t be such a high risk of Vitamin D deficiency. I do think it’s interesting that vitamin D can decrease the risk of transmitting HIV to offspring and wonder what causes this to happen. I will admit I do not know much about HIV, but if increasing vitamin D would decrease the chance of giving it to your children I think it is a great solution to be considered. I would be interested in researching more information on HIV and why it is that vitamin D levels can affect transmission from pregnant women to their children.