Apparently children who have had good nutrition would just 'shrug it off' if they contracted measles. Why don't they say that in the UK?

[bumbleymummy]

Article is here discussing the impact that poor nutrition has on children in developing countries.

Considering that the majority of children in the UK have no problem with good nutrition (fruit shoots and Greggs aside ) why aren't parents being reassured rather than terrified into having their children vaccinated with images of coffins plastered over the promotional material?

I agree Jack

or maybe conflate this

do you want this (coffin) or this (image of vitamin bottle)

{that's a joke but not a very good one as I am tired)

The coffins business is just scaremongering IMO and has no place anywhere in medicine not just with regard to vaccines. We all know we are going to die sometime, but how does rubbing it in help you?

What is needed is positive information. Instead of 'this could kill you', how about ' this will help you keep/become healthy.

Look, the coffin was ONE leaflet from one health authority- could we park that one? We could trade scaremongering stories all night, but it wouldn't be very constructive, would it?

Children of nursery age are already advised to take vitamin drops containing vitamin a.

Yes they are, but they don't link children's nutritional status to their ability to fight off childhood illnesses like measles in the literature. and toddlers#close NHS page, read the comment on the bottom.

This NHS page for health professionals mentions that 8% of children under 5 in the UK do not have enough vitamin A in their diet. The reference they took that information from is here.

If parents realised how important vitamins and minerals are for immune function they might be more likely to ensure their child has regular multi vitamin. Some parents will not know what the immune system is, let alone understand it. They would also know that if their child exhibited symptoms of measles that vitamin A can help and seek out medical advice on that basis.

The reference mentioned above states that one tenth of children aged 1.5 to 18 years had intakes of vitamin A below the Lower Reference Nutrient Intake (LRNI). The LRNI is the amount of nutrient intake for the small number of people who have low requirements (2.5%), the rest need more. That means more than one tenth of children aged 1.5 to 18 years will not have the intake of vitamin A to meet their needs.

The same report also states that only one fifth of children aged 1.5 to 4.5 are taking non-prescribed supplements, including vitamin A. The message is clearly not loud enough.

Nice one stitch. So much for Vitamin A deficiency being "very rare" in developed countries.

That's interesting.

So, on this thread we have seen that considerable percentages of children in the UK, the US and New Zealand do not get enough vitamin A - and that is before we even talk about how measles infection depletes vitamin A.

It clearly isn't enough to advise that children take a multivitamin and vaguely nod towards vitamin A which 'may' help with measles infection 'but we don't know why'.

Curlew, the link between vitamin A and measles was made in the 1930s.

You may well have been given cod liver oil as a child without that having been particularly to do with measles. Vitamin A isn't only used in the body to fight measles. Vitamin A is important to the immune system in general and is important for many other bodily mechanisms.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_A

Vitamin A has multiple functions, it is important for growth and development, for the maintenance of the immune system and good vision.[2] Vitamin A is needed by the retina of the eye in the form of retinal, which combines with protein opsin to form rhodopsin the light-absorbing molecule ,[3] that is necessary for both low-light (scotopic vision) and color vision.[4] Vitamin A also functions in a very different role as an irreversibly oxidized form of retinol known as retinoic acid, which is an important hormone-like growth factor for epithelial and other cells.[5]

It was very common in the past to give children cod liver oil for general health. I give it to my children and there is not currently measles circulating in our region. (When measles was circulating a couple of years ago, I spoke to our doctor about upping the dose and about the possibility of giving too much. He didn't know a whole lot about it TBH. I don't live in the UK though - perhaps doctors there are up to speed on vitamin A/measles.)

honestly - you lot - why don't you jut read the NHS advice on measles - it recommends Vitamin A treament
measles treatment so beachcomber, et al crawl back into your anti mmr cave and come up with another one

Coorong - two suggestions;

1. read the thread.

2. don't be rude to other posters if you haven't read the thread and post a link that has already been posted twice, quoted at least twice and discussed.

That page has already been linked to and discussed. At length. By me and other posters. Indeed I allude to it in my above post (on this very page) and JackNoneReacher quotes the text concerning vitamin A from that link in her post of Sun 30-Jun-13 20:19:15. (Which is on this page if you view MN in pages)

HTH

Coorong, I also linked to that page upthread. That link states that vitamin A deficiency is very rare. It is not very rare if one tenth of children aged 1.5 to 18 do not have an intake of vitamin A above the LRNI and more do not have the intake they need. The NHS information is incorrect.

Please read my last post.

The ironic thing is, most of the people who've posted that NHS link have not exactly been madlyprovaccineunderanycircumstances. They've been people finding fault with it. I doubt certain people even knew about it before it appeared here. I am so grateful for all the links on this thread! Have learned a lot more which has confirmed me in my views on this.

In fact Coorong I quoted it on June 20
"Do not mislead us all Grimma: if you google "measles Vitamin A" not one of the sources on the first page is the NHS. When you do eventually find the NHS resource, it's also misleading. "Vitamin A supplements have been shown in some studies to help prevent some of the serious complications arising from a measles infection, although it is not clear how they help." Deliberately intended to make it look like a sort of maverick, untested idea. Not well-tested and recommended by the WHO."

So yes, we all know about it we just think it's rubbish well me anyway