Do you get enough Vitamin D3? And why do you need it?

Do you get enough Vitamin D3? And why do you need it?

As you might know, Vitamin D is known as the sun vitamin because it gets produced as response to sunlight. This vitamin has a few important functions you need to know about:

  • It helps the absorption of calcium and phosphorus, thus, it is very important for strong bones and to reduce the risk of bone related conditions, such as osteoporosis.
  • It facilitates normal immune system
  • According to some researches, it reduces the risk of diseases, such as sclerosis, heart disease and developing the flu.

You get Vitamin D by direct skin exposure to sunlight, through some foods and by supplementing it. Knowing this in mind, you can easily guess that the people who need to additionally supplement this vitamin are the ones who do not get enough sunlight. This and other environmental and social factors strongly determine whether you are in need of Vitamin D.

You are in need of Vitamin D if:

  1. You live in a country where there is not much sunlight throughout the year
  2. You stay indoors for long hours during the day (this is true for most of the people who work in an office)
  3. The air where you live is very polluted
  4. You live in a big city with high buildings that block the sunlight
  5. You have darker skin and you live at a place without much light

You might be recognizing at least a couple of those factors being present in your life. Luckily, Vitamin D supplements are cheap and you can take 1 or 2 tablets with your breakfast (depending on the kind of vitamin you have chosen). Normally, you need around 50mcg a day.

Do you get enough Vitamin D3? And why do you need it?

Here is also a list of foods that contain Vitamin D:

  • Oily fish, such as salmon and trout
  • Mushrooms
  • Eggs (more especially egg yolks – this is why, my advice is to not fall for recipes that exclude egg yolks only to lose weight)
  • Cod liver oil
  • and other fortified foods, such as milk and cereals

Now is your turn. What do you do to get enough Vitamin D? Write in the comments section below.

Resources:
http://www.healthline.com/
http://www.healthaliciousness.com/
http://www.health.com/
http://nutritiondata.self.com/

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