Vitamin D Deficiency Can Show Up in Teeth

The Essentiality of Vitamin D

Calcium and phosphorus are widely known essential minerals needed by the body to promote bone health. Vitamin D helps metabolize these minerals and in turn affects how calcium is deposited in the bones. Hence, lack of this vitamin can jeopardise proper bone development and growth.

In infants and young children, this deficiency is called rickets and manifests as restlessness, lack of sleep, slow growth, a delay in crawling, sitting or walking. Left untreated, nodules can appear in joints, cause aches, pains and swelling, bones can grow rapidly especially in the arms and in the ribcage which can extend the chest as the bones do not fuse well at the ends. Pregnant mothers can pass it on if they are deficient also. Abnormal development and decay of teeth may also occur.

Anthropologists from McMaster University, Ontario, Canada have discovered interesting finds in human teeth that hold a detailed and permanent record of serious Vitamin D deficiency, or rickets. Upon X-ray, skeletal remains reveal their teeth have dentin deformities, preserved by the enamel which doesn’t break down easily like bones do. It told the researchers that people who lived centuries ago can have rickets if they are deprived of sunlight, the main source of vitamin D. In severe deficiency, the tooth pulp is asymmetrical and constricted and typically looks like the profile of a hard-backed chair, very much different from that of healthy, normal pulp.

These findings may be able to help those with ongoing issues of bone health to be able to arrest the condition timely. The researchers say that If regular dental X-rays show a problem, blood tests can confirm whether there is a deficiency. In case of children whose bones are still growing, an early X-ray of the teeth may help identify Vitamin-D related bone deficiency.

Detection By Dental X-Rays

Ask your Lynnwood dentist regarding vitamin deficiency and if it’s going to show up in your teeth. In all probability, you’re alright – you would have had sufficient sunlight growing up. Nonetheless, dental X-rays are always helpful, in many ways.

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