The list of benefits with vitamin D is long and includes helping the body prevent cancer, heart disease, diabetes, depression, osteoporosis, and much more. As it relates to calcium, without vitamin D, less than 15% of dietary calcium is absorbed, making adult consumption of milk futile. Vitamin D is one of few vitamins that doesn’t primarily come from food sources in levels that meet the body’s needs. Fortunately, naturally formed vitamin D is made in your skin as the result of sunlight. This makes vitamin D an equal opportunity nutrient. Or does it? The Journal of Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapeutics presented a review of vitamin D and revealed that almost half of the world’s population is vitamin D deficient. This is due to reduced outdoor activity, environmental issues like pollution, seasonal climate changes, and abundant sunscreen use. This vitamin is too important to the body and its complex systems to be neglected. Our fear of the sun is overdone. What needs to be feared is our misuse of it via activities like habitual sun tanning with its required sunscreen use which leads to vitamin D deficiency. Make friends with the sun and treat it responsibly.
Optimal vitamin D status attenuates the age-associated increase in systolic blood pressure in white Americans: results from the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Judd SE, Nanes MS, Ziegler TR, Wilson PW, Tangpricha V Am J Clin Nutr. 2008 Jan; 87(1):136-41. – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3356951/
Working in my garden is a great way to get my Vitamin D!
I wear sunscreen if out in the sun for long periods of time to prevent skin cancer.
I will still be wearing sunscreen. I spend way too much time outside to go without it. That is a cancer risk as well.
I am curious if we still are able to soak up some vitamin D even with sunscreen on. I am sure it blocks the majority of it but you would think that some would still be absorbed. Especially since we are supposed to reapply sunscreen every few hours to maintain its effectiveness. Either way I love being outdoors and in the sun so vitamin D isn’t typically an issue for me,
Interesting
Great article!
I think living at the beach would be best for me so I would get plenty of sun 🙂
My husband’s skin is so sensitive that he has to use a very high SPF sunscreen. He is probably not getting any benefit from the Sun for vitamin D then.