Paediatric food allergy and the role of vitamin D

Vitamin D plays a significant role in multiple physiological functions in humans. The prevalence of paediatric food allergy (FA) has been tentatively linked to vitamin D insufficiency. In Victoria, Australia, the frequency of both vitamin D insufficiency and paediatric FA is high.Vitamin D conventionally is measured in serum / plasma and the interpretation cut-offs for adults are well-defined. However, the interest in the use of dried blood spots (DBS) as an alternative matrix for vitamin D assessment has increased or large-scale population studies. we aimed to develop a sensitive and robust local DBS vitamin D method, to to provide a description of vitamin D levels at birth in the Melbournian infant population and investigate the association between vitamin D status and prevalence of paediatric FA and eczema in early childhood. We developed a sensitive liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometery method and measured vitamin D from 2700 newborns' DBS samples. Our research demonstrated that, vitamin D levels in newborn babies is influenced by season of birth and maternal vitamin D supplementation. Lower vitamin D levels do not influence the risk of challenge-proven FA or eczema in infancy. Further studies are required to define age appropriate decision limits for vitamin D