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Researchers claim that Vitamin D supplements can decrease risk of respiratory infections in children by 50 percent. 

A study conducted in 250 Mongolian schoolchildren supports the possibility that daily vitamin D supplementation can reduce the risk of respiratory infections in winter. 

The study will be published in the journal Pediatrics .

The team of international researchers found that vitamin D supplementation decreased the risk of respiratory infections among children who had low blood levels of vitamin D at the start of the study.

Vitamin D is naturally produced by the body in response to sunlight, but in the winter time, maintaining adequate levels is particularly challenging in areas such as the northern U.S. and Canada. 

Researchers compared the number of winter respiratory infections among a group of children who received, for seven weeks, daily doses of vitamin D added to locally produced milk with that of a group receiving the same milk 

At the end of the seven weeks, researchers found significant differences between the two groups. 

Those who received vitamin D averaging 19 ng/ml (47 nmol/L) had about half the incidence of respiratory infections that the control group had.

Researchers said that treating low vitamin D levels in children with an inexpensive and safe supplement will prevent some respiratory infections. 

"The large benefit was undoubtedly related to the low baseline vitamin D levels of these children, so I would not expect the supplement to provide similar benefit in children who start with healthy levels of vitamin D," Carlos Camargo, the study's corresponding author, said. "The key question for future research is at what initial vitamin D level would children no longer receive benefit from winter supplementation?"

However, the researchers did note that while the vitamin D dosage used in this study (300 IU daily) was higher than the recommended daily dosage at the time the study was launched. 

Since then, the U.S. Institute of Medicine has raised the recommended dose for children to 400 IU, and other groups recommend daily dosages as high as 1,000 IU for children at risk for vitamin D deficiency. 

The low baseline vitamin D levels seen in the study participants are relatively common in some groups of Americans, such as African-American children living in northern states.

Vitamin D is best known for its role in the development and maintenance of strong bones and immune function.