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HIV epidemic

Vitamin D and HIV

Despite everything we know about vitamin D, anyone can bet that nothing will surprise us about this vitamin?

I certainly do not. Reviewing some of the latest published studies on vitamin D one caught my attention appeared in the Journal of Infectious Diseases in October 2009. The study was conducted in Tanzania, a country particularly affected by the HIV epidemic, with 884 infected pregnant women.

And the results were quite significant:

- 61% higher mortality during follow-up in children born to mothers with low vitamin D.

- 50% more cases of HIV measured in the sixth week of birth in children born to mothers with low vitamin D.

- 49% fetal mortality or HIV infection detected at birth in mothers with low vitamin D.
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