Press release, 27 February 2013

Too much vitamin D during pregnancy can cause food allergies

The Leipzig Helmholtz study indicates a link between high vitamin D levels in expectant mothers and increased infant allergy risks.


Leipzig/Halle. Pregnant women should avoid taking vitamin D supplements. Substitution appears to raise the risk of children developing a food allergy after birth. This was the conclusion drawn from a new survey carried out by the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research and the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg in Germany which was published in the February issue of the medical journal Allergy.

Fragebogen To investigate the question, Dr. Kristin Weiße’s team from Leipzig used samples from the LiNA cohort that the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) had established together with the St. Georg municipal clinic between 2006 and 2008 headed by Dr. Irina Lehmann. In total, it was possible to include 622 mothers and their 629 children in the long-term study “Lifestyle and environmental factors and their impact on the newborn allergy risk”.
Photo: Kristin Weiße/UFZ
License: CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses
/by/3.0/de/)
Vitamin D has always had a good reputation: it strengthens bones, protects against infections particularly during the cold winter months and aids the nervous and muscular systems. Especially in the prevention and treatment of rickets, it has been given to babies and infants around the world for around 50 years. However, recent scientific investigations are increasingly questioning the positive aspect of the “bone vitamin”. At the end of the 1990’s, for the first time people’s attention was drawn to a link between high vitamin D levels and the development of allergies.
To pursue the problem, together with Prof. Gabriele Stangl’s group from the Institute of Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences at the Martin-Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg, Dr. Kristin Weiße from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig devoted herself to the following task: can it be proved that there is a correlation between the concentration of vitamin D in the blood of expectant mothers and in cord blood of the babies? The researchers from the UFZ in Leipzig were furthermore interested in the association between vitamin D levels during pregnancy and at birth, the immune status and allergic diseases of the children later in life. Or, in other words: does the vitamin D level of pregnant women affect the allergy risk of their children?
To investigate the question, Dr. Kristin Weiße’s team from Leipzig used samples from the LiNA cohort that the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) had established together with the St. Georg municipal clinic between 2006 and 2008 headed by Dr. Irina Lehmann. In total, it was possible to include 622 mothers and their 629 children in the long-term study “Lifestyle and environmental factors and their impact on the newborn allergy risk”. The level of vitamin D was tested in the blood of the pregnant mothers and also in the cord blood of the children born. In addition to this, questionnaires were used to assess the occurrence of food allergies during the first two years of the children’s lives. The result was clear: in cases where expectant mothers were found to have a low vitamin D level in the blood, the occurrence of food allergies among their two-year old children was rarer than in cases where expectant mothers had a high vitamin D blood level. In reverse, this means that a high vitamin D level in pregnant women is associated with a higher risk of their children to develop a food allergy during infancy. Furthermore, those children were found to have a high level of the specific immunoglobulin E to food allergens such as egg white, milk protein, wheat flour, peanuts or soya beans. The UFZ scientists also got evidence fot the mechanism that could link vitamin D and food allergies. Dr. Gunda Herberth – also from the Department of Environmental Immunology at the UFZ – took a closer look at the immune response of the affected children and analysed regulatory T-cells in cord blood in particular. The cells are capable of preventing the immune system from overreacting to allergens, with the result that they protect against allergies. The UFZ researchers know from earlier analyses that the allergy risk increases in cases where too few regulatory T-cells are present in cord blood. The interesting result of the current research project: the higher the level of vitamin D found in the blood of mothers and children, the fewer regulatory T-cells could be detected. The correlation could mean that vitamin D suppresses the development of regulatory T-cells and thus increases the risk of allergy.
Apart from diet, Dr. Kristin Weiße explained that the level of vitamin D is mainly affected by conditions such as season, exposure to the sun and the amount of time spent outdoors - these factors were also taken into account in the current risk analyses of vitamin D and food allergy. Even though the occurrence of food allergies is undoubtedly affected by many other factors than just the vitamin D level, it is still important to take this aspect into consideration. The UFZ researchers would rather advise pregnant women not to take vitamin D supplements. “Based on our information, an excess of vitamin D can increase the risk of children developing a food allergy in the first two years of their life.”
Daniela Weber


Publication:

Weisse, K., Winkler, S., Hirche, F., Herberth, G., Hinz, D., Bauer, M., Roeder, S., Rolle-Kampczyk, U., von Bergen, M., Olek, S., Richter, T., Diez, U., Borte, M., Stangl, G.I., Lehmann, I. (2013): Maternal and newborn vitamin D status and its impact on food allergy development in the German LiNA cohort study. Allergy 68 (2), 220 – 228.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/all.12081

The investigations carried out in the LiNA study were supported by the Helmholtz Association.


Further information:

Dr. Irina Lehmann, Dr. Kristin Weiße

Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)

Phone: +49 341-235-1216, -1265, -1547

http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=4384

or

Tilo Arnhold (UFZ press office)

Phone: +49 341-235-1635

http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=640


Further links:

LiNA study (Lebensstil und Umweltfaktoren und deren Einfluss auf das Neugeborenen- Allergierisiko [Lifestyle and environmental factors and their impact on the newborn allergy risk])

http://www.ufz.de/index.php?de=10309


At the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) scientists are researching the causes and consequences of far-reaching changes to the environment. They are concerned with water resources, biological diversity, the consequences of climate change and adaptability, environmental and biotechnologies, bioenergy, the behaviour of chemicals in the environment, their effect on health, modelling and social science issues. Their guiding theme: Our research contributes to the sustainable use of natural resources and helps to secure this basis for life over the long term under the effects of global change. The UFZ employs 1,000 people in Leipzig, Halle and Magdeburg. It is financed by the federal government and the federal states of Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.
http://www.ufz.de/

The Helmholtz Association contributes towards solving major and pressing social, scientific and economic issues with scientific excellence in six research areas: Energy, Earth and Environment, Health, Key Technologies, Structure of Matter, Aeronautics, Aerospace and Transport. The Helmholtz Association is Germany’s largest scientific organisation with over 33,000 employees in 18 research centres and an annual budget of approximately 3.4 billion euros. Its work stands in the tradition of the naturalist Hermann von Helmholtz (1821-1894).
http://www.helmholtz.de