Much has been written about the need for and benefits of vitamin D supplementation over the past several years - and with good reason. It's critical for our health and almost 50% of the western world are deficient in vitamin D.
We can get vitamin D from food and sunshine. Seafood is the only significant source of vitamin D, but one still has to eat a lot of it to get enough. 220 to 250 grams of oily fish like sardines, provides about 2000 IU vitamin D which is the minimum daily requirement for most people to maintain adequate blood levels.
Sunlight converts a precursor called 7-dehydro- cholesterol in our skin to vitamin D3. along with the D3 we get from food, gets converted by the liver into 25 hyrdroxy-vitamin D (25D) which is what typically gets measured when you have a vitamin D test.
Optimal level is somewhere between 30 and 50ng/ml.
What about the sunlight ?
Well, in summer mid-day sun with pale skin, 30 minutes of direct sunlight will produce 10-20,000 IU of vitamin D. This is best scenario. With darker skin, different times of the year, buildings that block the sunlight, or increased time spent indoors, we won't be producing that much. It's also true that aging, why sunlight alone isn't normally a sufficient source of vitamin D.
It's very important to test your 25D levels first and then begin supplementation. Re-tests after a few months is equally important to determine the correct maintenance dose.
As with vitamin A, the best source of vitamin D is high-vitamin cod liver oil. It contains not only vitamins A&D, but also natural vitamin E and other quinines.
R Parlak
In next week's blog, we will look at "Magnesium".