Possible link probed: deafness and vitamin D

Several years ago a 35-year-old Asian man went to the London Hospital with a two-year history of progressive bilateral deafness and tinnitus. Before otolaryngologists there could examine him, however, he was hospitalized for severe frontal headaches and underwent a full blood screen. Later, when otolaryngologist Gerald B. Brookes, MB, FRCS, looked at the results, he noticed that the plasma levels of inorganic phosphate, calcium, and alkaline phosphatase were abnormal, suggesting a bone disorder. "I didn't know what this meant, so I 'phoned up one of our metabolic physicians," recalls Brookes, who reported his work at the Sixth British Academic Conference in Otolaryngology in Bristol, England, during the summer. "He immediately asked me if the patient was Asian. It turns out, you see, that for some reason Asians in Britain are at particular risk for rickets and osteomalacia because of a vitamin D deficiency." Sure enough, when Brookes, senior registrar at