OnTrack Reading

This page of the Guide introduces what will seem to be a radical concept to most, and I begin it with a disclaimer.

Disclaimer: What you read on this website concerning Vitamin D3 is entirely speculative and should not be construed as a recommendation to supplement with Vitamin D3. This is strictly a theoretical discussion on a possible link between dyslexia and Vitamin D3 deficiency.

Where Do We Get Vitamin D3?

In summertime, our primary source of vitamin D3 is manufactured by our bare skin when exposed to direct sunlight. When the sun is low in the sky, or when sun block is routinely used, or the rays of the sun otherwise avoided, the only source of vitamin D3 is in our diets, and the average modern diet generally provides much less than we receive from the sun in summertime. Supplements are readily available and a modest amount is included in most multi-vitamins.

Does a Vitamin D3 Deficiency Cause Dyslexia?

I suspect this question comes out of the blue to most readers, so let me explain how I arrived at the point where it occurred to me to ask it. I was already familiar with vitamin D3 as I was taking it myself and had been tested to ensure that I was getting the right amount for our Wisconsin winters. Over the course of a year or so I learned more and more about the effects of vitamin D3 on health and then one day I read a brief note linking a vitamin D3 deficiency to autism. This led me to the website, VitaminDcouncil.org, maintained by Dr. John Jacob Cannell and his paper titled Vitamin D Theory of Autism. Note that Dr. Cannell states on the first page that he is just presenting a theory. Much remains to be proven, but his 11-page paper makes for very interesting reading.

Now, I have felt for years that autism, Asperger’s and dyslexia are all related conditions, with autism at the severe end of the spectrum and dyslexia at the milder end of a pattern of delayed development across several developmental abilities. While Dr. Cannell does an excellent job of explaining his theory relating autism to Vitamin D deficiency, I wondered whether a similar case could be made for dyslexia (since I believe they are related conditions.)

Does Birth Month Relate to Dyslexia?

If a Vitamin D3 deficiency underlies autism (as Dr. Cannell theorizes) and if autism and dyslexia are related conditions (as I suspect), and if pregnant women in our northern climate become vitamin D3 deficient during the winter months (as Dr. Cannell claims is quite likely) then perhaps I would find some indication of that in my reading practice clients, many of whom exhibit the same signs as dyslexics in that they struggle to learn to read in the normal classroom.

It also happens that over a particular period, most of my clients had also been treated for vision issues by undergoing vision therapy. I therefore took the clients in that particular period (extending over almost a year) and graphed them by month of their births. The reason I chose this group is because something physical (vision problems) could be construed as preventing them from reading fluently, rather than just poor initial reading instruction. What I found was quite startling.

Results by Birth Month

None of the dozen or so clients in that time period were born in the consecutive months October, November, December, January and February. All of them were born in the other seven months, with the largest concentration being in March, April, May and June. I was, frankly, astounded at this initial finding and proceeded to analyze my entire client base going back over several years and found that the five highest birth months of my entire client base fell in the five-month stretch beginning in March and ending in July. While this is obviously not conclusive evidence of a link between birth month and dyslexia, and certainly not between vitamin D3 deficiency and dyslexia, it did support my initial hypothesis that I would find a birth month pattern if autism and dyslexia and vitamin D3 deficiency are all linked together in some manner.

How Much Vitamin D3 Is Enough? - A Controversial Question

Until very recently the federal government had established daily supplement recommendations of 200 IU for children under one year of age and 400 IU for everyone else. In addition, the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has set the upper limit of safety for vitamin D supplementation at 1000 IU daily for infants and 2000 IU daily for children and adults.

However, some medical doctors claim that these recommended levels, when combined with twenty years of government advocating staying out of direct sunlight to avoid skin cancer, have resulted in what they call an “epidemic” of Vitamin D deficiency, particularly in colder climates. These doctors claim that it is nearly impossible to maintain Vitamin D3 levels at optimal levels without supplementation above the recommended levels and even above the levels the IOM has specified as the “upper limit of safety.” (For example, many recommendations are on the order of 3,000 to 5,000 IU per day for adults in the winter months.)

There is also a significant dispute as to what the optimal blood levels of Vitamin D3 should be during the winter, with those claiming a “deficiency epidemic” advocating levels of 40 to as much as 80 ng/ml (nanograms per milliliter) be maintained in the blood as determined by a Vitamin D3 blood test designated as “25(OH)D”. Note: the test designated 1,25(OH)D is the blood test for Vitamin D2; it is Vitamin D3 that is being addressed here.

AAP Increases Allowable Vitamin D3 Dosage

In October, 2008, the American Acadamy of Pediatrics (AAP) doubled the recommended dosage of supplemental Vitamin D to 400 IU for infants. This move was actually a reversal of a move to lower it from 400 IU to 200 IU back in 2003 and, in my opinion, was an acknowledgment of the possibility that Vitamin D3 levels in the general population are too low in the winter months. Here is what they said:

“We are doubling the recommended amount of vitamin D children need each day because evidence has shown this could have life-long health benefits,” said Frank Greer, MD, chair of the AAP Committee on Nutrition and co-author of the report. “Supplementation is important because most children will not get enough vitamin D through diet alone.”

And here is a link to the article: AAP: Vitamin D Recommendation Doubled. Note that the recommendation involved Vitamin D generally, but the medical doctors that have been advocating the need for additional supplementation apparently recommend that it be done in the form of Vitamin D3.

Back to the Fish Oil Study

As explained on another diet page of this Guide, an excellent study on fish oil supplementation found that children improved their reading when taking fish oil. Until this vitamin D3 issue cropped up, that was the only dietary consideration I had uncovered regarding dyslexia. So, naturally, it raised the question of whether the two issues were related.

At first I thought that fish oil was a source of vitamin D3, but that apparently only applies to fish liver oil, such as cod liver oil and not to fish oil derived from the flesh of the fish instead of the liver. Some confusion also resulted because many fish oils are supplemented with vitamin D in some form.

While my first thought was to wonder whether the fish oil study might also support the Vitamin D3 hypothesis, it now appears that it does not, unless we later find that the fish oil used in the study had a vitamin D component that isn’t mentioned in the article. This is probably unlikely, so fish oil should stand on its own as possible way to improve a child’s ability to learn to read.

And, as if all of this isn’t confusing enough, the same Dr. Cannell who wrote the paper hypothesizing a link between autism and a Vitamin D3 deficiency has raised the issue that the large amount of Vitamin A in cod liver oil prevents the body from efficiently utilizing the vitamin D3 in cod liver oil because of the particular form of Vitamin A it contains. You can read his discussion of Vitamin A Toxicity in his December 2008 newsletter. Essentially, he recommends getting Vitamin A primarily from dietary sources.

Increase in Dyslexia Over Recent Decades Related to Vitamin D3?

In his paper on autism, Dr. Cannell relates the increase in the incidence of autism over recent decades to the reduction in Vitamin D3 in children because of the medical advice to avoid the direct rays of the sun that has been promulgated for the past two decades.

Interestingly, you will find on many websites devoted to reading instruction, and particularly to phonics instruction, an ongoing debate over whether the number of poor readers has increased over the past several decades. Many of the older contributors to such websites will claim that they can recall very few of their peers in grade school who couldn’t learn to read. That is, dyslexics were quite rare in the “good old days,” according to their perceptions anyway. The phonics advocates nearly always argue that this perceived increase in struggling readers is evidence that the trend to whole language instruction has created a group of poor readers falsely labeled “dyslexic.”

While the perceived increase in poor readers might indeed be due to poor curriculum choices, it is also possible that the increased tendency to “protect” children and pregnant mothers from the injurious rays of the sun has increased the incidence of dyslexia (and autism, Asperger’s and possibly even ADHD according to some) by creating legions of vitamin D3 deficient children.

Autism and the Amish

At one point I planned to add a page to this diet segment of the Guide mentioning that autism was apparently rare among the Amish population (in at least one area) and linking that to the likelihood that the Amish still get sufficient Omega-3’s in their diets because they tend to eat free-ranging chicken and pastured beef while consuming less of our modern grain-based diet. However, given the amount of time that Amish children typically spend outdoors, even in winter, now makes me wonder if they have managed to avoid a general vitamin D3 deficiency in their population. As with most of the comments on this page, this is speculation only.

Predestination versus Predisposition

IF (big “if”) this theory proves out someday, should you be distressed that you gave birth in April or May to a child now struggling with learning to read, suspecting that you were probably vitamin D3 deficient due to receiving a lack of sun in the winter months? Dr. Cannell writes the following on page 2 of his paper: “Whatever its genetic roots, and they are strong, autism hardly follows classic genetic inheritance. What is clear is that the genes that control autism confer predisposition, not predestination.”

By this he means that while autism, and I believe dyslexia as well, is inherited, the genes involved might conceivably be modified, even after birth, to prevent autism from manifesting itself, or possibly from becoming as severe. He appears to even be open to the possibility that it can be made less severe if an existing vitamin D3 deficiency is overcome. Here, the fish oil study I’ve referred to might offer some consolation, as it appears that a diet change did modify both the children’s reading ability and their ADHD symptoms. Admittedly, neither of these are as severe as autism.

Parents of autistic children often undergo tremendous stress while pursuing one “cure” after another for their children’s condition. Similarly, the parents of a dyslexic child go through periods of significant stress in trying to sort out what to do to address the condition. What I have found is that various therapies, including vision therapy followed by a solid phonics course can offer dyslexics a great deal of help. If we someday find that vitamin D3 also helps them, all the better, but right now such a suggestion is just a hypothesis I’m willing to consider.

How This All Might Fit Together

If you read each section on the Guide concerning dyslexia, it will appear to you that many different approaches are suggested, but actually there is a hierarchy, or preferred order, of sorts.

First, diet might turn out to be important. Two areas that bear investigation are Omega-3 and Vitamin D3 deficiencies.

Second, if a child is at risk of being dyslexic, which I really view as meaning that he is susceptible to experiencing a pattern of delayed development across several possible fronts, then various exercise therapies in the years of early childhood might be effective in aiding development that might not otherwise occur on schedule. (However, I have had no personal experience with any of the exercise therapies, so I cannot comment on the usefulness of any of them.)

Third, vision therapy might be indicated for a child who arrives at reading age unable to deal with print, either because he missed the first two interventions, or because they were insufficient or ineffective. (At this same time in a child’s life various listening therapies might also be found to be useful to overcome auditory processing issues. However, I have no experience with those therapies and cannot comment on their effectiveness at this time.) Regarding vision therapy, however, I have had extensive personal experience with children who have benefited from it, and recommend that any child struggling to learn to read should be evaluated by a developmental optometrist.

And fourth, any child struggling to learn to read in school should be given a solid phonics program as that is the best way to ensure that he learns how our alphabetic system works. He might read with poor fluency his entire life, but nearly every child can be taught to read in time. It is in addressing the other factors as well that one increases the probability that he will eventually read as well as his peers, and possibly even on the same timetable as his peers.

The next page addresses some questions regarding Vitamin D3 supplementation.

Next: Vitamin D3 Questions, or return to the Home Page