Sunshine Vitamin and Winter Days
The cold, short winter days are approaching and the “sunshine vitamin” is becoming scarce. There are no more days at the lake or the pool just lounging around absorbing the great vitamin D.
We receive majority of our vitamin D from the sun. When the sun’s UV rays hit our skin the synthesis of vitamin D begins. During the winter months we don’t spent as much time outdoors, so we have to rely on foods as our source of vitamin D.
There are very few natural food sources of vitamin D. These sources are fatty fish flesh, beef liver, egg yolks and mushrooms. Many products today are fortified with vitamin D. This means vitamin D has been added to a product that originally did not have any vitamin D. These products are milk, milk products, orange juice and ready to eat cereals. The recommended dietary allowance for vitamin D is 600 IU for people ages 1 to 70 and 800 IU for people 70 years of age and up. These numbers are easily obtained when exposed to the sun for 10 minutes. People who are at risk for a vitamin D deficiency are the elderly, breastfed infants, people who have limited exposure to sun, people with fat malabsorption and people with dark colored skin. While you can’t reach a vitamin D toxicity with exposure to the sun you can with supplementation.
Vitamin D is a key player in bone health. Many of us believe osteoporosis is a direct result of having an inadequate intake of calcium. It could also be due to having an inadequate amount of vitamin D. Vitamin D promotes calcium absorption in the gut and maintains blood levels of calcium and phosphate during bone growth and remodeling. Studies are being performed to see the role of vitamin D in colon caner, prostate cancer and breast cancer.
Published 11/02/11
