Vitamin Sunshine or vitamin D. What is Vitamin D and why it is so important?
Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that is produced in our skin in response to the sunlight. Our body can produce vitamin D naturally when we are directly exposed to sunlight. We can also get it through food and supplements both in oral, intramuscular, and intravenous form. It is important because vitamin D plays a very vital role in our body – from boosting our immunity to maintaining our weight, and it also affects our mental wellbeing.
Perhaps the most vital function of vitamin D is that it regulates the absorption of calcium and phosphorus in our body. These are the nutrients that are needed to keep the bone, teeth, and muscles healthy. If our body does not get enough of vitamin D, we will be at risk of having many acute, chronic, and autoimmune conditions such as osteoporosis, osteomalacia and thyroid disease.
There are many factors that affect our ability to get enough vitamin D through the sun alone. Those include being in big cities where buildings block the sunlight, very polluted areas, spending more time indoors, wearing sunscreen all the time and having darker skin.
The symptoms that you might encounter are tiredness, body pain, feeling lethargic, general sense of not feeling well, severe bone or muscle pain or even in severe cases having stress fracture in legs, pelvis, and hips.
Especially if you feel that you might be having vitamin D deficiency it is always best to get it checked. The deficiency has many levels from mild, moderate to severe. If treated in time it can prevent many conditions. The treatment needs to be started properly from looking back at the root cause of the problem. So, to identify the cause you will discuss your lifestyle and eating habits with a physician along with a proper general body checkup and then you will be recommended to do some blood work. After the blood work up, depending on the level of deficiency, a proper treatment plan will be initiated and personalized to each person. You should also make sure to get vitamin D naturally through sunlight and the foods you eat. The food sources of vitamin D includes egg yolk, salmon, sardine, shrimp and other vitamin D fortified food.
So, are you having enough vitamin sunshine?