Vitamin D Can Be Seen in X-Rays

Vitamin D deficiency is serious, but this condition often goes unnoticed. It’s been known for quite some time that teeth contain a lot of information. The information includes a permanent record of a severe vitamin D deficiency, which can cause microscopic deformations in dentine, the inner, softer part of your tooth just underneath the tooth enamel. The hard, outer layer of tooth enamel protects this record, so it’s possible for researchers to identify vitamin D deficiency in people who lived hundreds of years ago but to access this record the tooth had to be cut open.

Now, researchers have discovered a dental x-ray can identify a vitamin D deficiency in a living tooth. They have found a recognisable pattern in the shape of the dental pulp or the innermost part of the tooth and which contains nerves, connective tissues and blood vessels. In a healthy person, the pulp looks like an arch topped by two evenly shaped horns, a little like cat ears. In a person with a vitamin D deficiency, this profile is more like a hard dining chair, where the horns are constricted, and one is much higher than the other. Examinations of historical and current teeth have proved these x-ray images are reliable which is potentially exciting news for modern healthcare.