DOCTORS in the North-East have warned of a “disturbing”

rise in the number of children with rickets.

About 20 new cases of rickets are being diagnosed a year in Newcastle.

They said one of the problems is that youngsters spend more time indoors on their computers, compared with previous generations who spent time playing outside with their friends.

The condition, common in the Victorian times, is linked with poverty and starvation and causes youngsters to develop painful and deformed bowed legs.

In an attempt to halt the rise, medical experts from Newcastle University have called for vitamin D – a lack of which causes rickets – to be added to milk and other food products.

In the latest issue of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), Professor Simon Pearce and Dr Tim Cheetham, of Newcastle University, have called for a change in public health policy.

Dr Cheetham, senior lecturer in paediatric endocrinology at Newcastle University, said: “I am dismayed by the increasing numbers of children we are treating with this entirely preventable condition.

“Fifty years ago, many children would have been given regular doses of cod liver oil, but this practice has all but died out.”

Mr Pearce, professor of endocrinology, said: “Kids tend to stay indoors more these days and play on their computers instead of enjoying the fresh air. This means their vitamin D levels are worse than in previous years.

“Health professionals have been slow to deal with this problem, even though we have known about it for a while.

“Some measures have been taken but the number of patients still presenting with symptoms of vitamin D deficiency shows we have a long way to go.

“We believe that a more robust approach to statutory food supplementation with vitamin D, for example in milk, is needed in the UK, as this measure has already been introduced successfully in many other countries in similar parts of the world.”

The latest edition of the BMJ explained that our main source of vitamin D is sunlight, through skin exposure.

But the vitamin is also present in a small number of foods such as salmon, mackerel, sardines, herring and cod liver oil.