Vitamin D-Bunked?

A couple of years ago, researchers in Sweden and Minnesota independently announced the same startling observation: children of Somali immigrants have higher rates of autism than do children of other ethnicities.A follow-up study by the Swedish group, published 5 March in Acta Paediatrica, upends the controversial notion that these clusters are a result of low levels of vitamin D.The theory goes like this: Women in Somalia are exposed to tons of sunlight — the body's main source of vitamin D — and consequently make vitamin D more slowly than do light-skinned women. When Somali women immigrate to northern latitudes, they see much less sunlight. If they make much less vitamin D during pregnancy, then their children could wind up with autism.Read more at...SFARI, May 2010.