"Skeletons show rickets struck the Medici family" Topic

"As the wealthy rulers of Tuscany and patrons of Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo, the Medicis were the 'first family' of the Italian Renaissance.

But all their wealth could not buy good health for their young sons and daughters. A study1 of the skeletons of nine Medici children born in the sixteenth century shows that they had rickets, a vitamin D deficiency that causes bones to become soft and even deformed. What's more, the disease was partially a result of the privileged upbringing these children enjoyed, which in particular led them to stay mostly indoors.

Rickets is usually associated with poverty and living in heavily polluted, close-built cities where there is little exposure to sunlight. But the Medici kids, ranging in age from newborn to 5 years old, "belonged to a high social class. We expect these children to be well-nourished", says palaeopathologist Valentina Giuffra of the University of Pisa, a co-author of the study, which was published last month in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology1. So "it is surprising to find this," she says…"
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