As a fatal Measles The epidemic is spreading, the United States’s leading health official has offered some suggestions that do not support science. Secretary for Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy said Fox News It was presenting his department earlier this month Vitamin A Texas, and health officials were getting results by treating measles with COD liver oil, a substance that has high levels Vitamin A and d.
Although vitamin A, in fact, is part of the recommended treatment for measles, “This is not a good advice,” Adam RatnerPediatric Infectious Disease Specialist, and Member of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Committee on Infectious Diseases. “I think the problem is that it has taken some place where the truth is available, which is because of the vitamin A status and measles results, and it has converted it into vitamin A and vitamin D.
Kennedy’s advice could not be worse. By March 18The Texas Department of Health and Human Services was reporting 279 cases since late January, in which 36 patients needed to be hospitalized. An unbeaten child was killed in Texas, while another unidentified man died in New Mexico. Cases have been reported in at least seven other states. According to the World Health Organization (WHO)More than 100,000 people, most of them under five years of age, died globally in 2023.
Vitamin a factor
Although Kennedy may have been wrong overall, as Ratner noted, there is still a silver of truth. Both Cdc And WHO Recommend vitamin A measles diagnosing children, which are found in foods like carrots, spinach, pumpkin, eggs, milk, sweet potatoes and mangoes.
Countless Studies Is Found Vitamin A is effective in reducing the severity of measles, including reducing the mortality rate. According to the AAP guide letters, children who check positively for measles should be given two doses of vitamin A daily for two days, their diet varies by age.
However, many studies that concluded Vitamin A were an effective treatment for populations that is usually nutritionized. In more developed countries like the United States, the effect of vitamin A is less clear. A 2021 Study There was no significant difference in the treatment of children admitted to the hospital with measles between Vitamin A and Placebo in Italy.
Ratner noted that the Italian study was suffering from the size of a small sample, but he acknowledged, “There are some figures saying that the effect of Vitamins in Italy or the United States is less likely to be less than a completion that is far more nutritious.
[ Related: How to check your measles vaccination status amid outbreak. ]
Vitamin A is good for measles. The reasons are straightforward and complicated. Vitamin “plays an important role in the work of the immune system.” Eric BluetingerAssistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at ICAHN School of Medicine. “It helps the body to produce antibodies. It helps the body to mobilize the T -cell response, and it prevents immunity from weakening overall.”
Vitamin A is also important for skin health, as it helps maintain healthy cells in the epidemics of the skin.
Blottinger added, “Skin is one of our important organs and also serves as a protective barrier for our immune system.”
Very nice thing
The problem with the recent recommendation is that some parents can hear that a little vitamin A is good, so it should be better. Like most medications, it can be a dangerous thinking. In large quantities, Vitamin A can be toxic. Symptoms may include nausea, vomiting, headache and blurred vision. In extreme cases, it can damage permanent liver, bone, or nervous system.
Ratner said, Vitamin A is especially dangerous “because it is soluble in fat, it is stored in the liver.” “It is very easy to give someone a lot, and it can either be too much in terms of individual doses or even in terms of reasonable doses. It can endanger the liver, it can endanger the bones. Vitamin A is not a matter of diagnosis than it is time for people to diagnose it. It should be done, and this is not something unless there is a special medical condition that is being treated.
In 2023 Article Published in The Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians opened, Bluetinger noted that there is no antiviral treatment available for measles yet. Although the dose of vitamin A is recommended for two days, after several weeks after another dose, this study has concluded that the best and certain way to cope with the disease is vaccinated.
[ Related: Is raw milk safe? Science has a clear answer. ]
How to stay healthy
Beyond that VacciningThe best advice was to offer the Bluetinger parents “to be well aware of the confirmed information that comes from your primary care doctors and medical professionals who do not care about politics.”
He added, “My second suggestion is to take the measles very seriously and what you have to do to protect your loved ones, your children, the elderly, every person around you, because, as we have seen during Coid, pandemic diseases are not easily considered.” “If the measles is spreading rapidly, we can be even more serious.”
