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Health & Fitness

Blogger: Less Sun Means Less Vitamin D, Here's What You Should Know!

Vitamin D: The sunlight vitamin. But it's winter! It's too cold to go out and the sun's barely up in the day. Here's what you need to know to make sure this winter your bones stay strong.

It's well-known vitamin D is the sunlight vitamin, and that if we're deficient bad things happen to our bones - rickets in children and osteomalacia (a pre-osteoporosis) in adults.

It's become common for general practitioners (or family practice docs) to check vitamin D levels time to time in patients they suspect may be low. Some of you may have even been put on supplemental vitamin D, which comes in pill- or now gummy-form over-the-counter at any pharmacy. I've even seen patients put on "megadoses" for short periods of time to correct their low-level quickly.

Vitamin D, like fish oil several years ago, is studied at so many laboratories that new benefits from it are being published seemingly every day. I've read it can help a dieter take off more pounds if their levels are in the normal range, and that being in that range can also decrease the risks of some cancers.

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A lot of new benefits being put forward are the result of one or two studies, so more work is needed to confirm some of what's out there. And it's important to remember D is a fat-soluble vitamin, meaning it can store up in the body to levels that are TOO high and have unwanted effects (kidney stones, constipation, abdominal pain, mood issues).

In winter we don't always get enough sunlight. Usually we still get enough vitamin D from diet, but what I'd like to do is tell you who's always at risk of being vitamin D deficient, because it's this time of year that risk is greatest.

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The elderly and obese, for multiple reasons, are at risk. Infants being exclusively breastfed are - there is very little vitamin D in breast milk - so it's important to supplement with an over-the-counter vitamin once daily while the baby is relying solely on it. And because vitamin D is fat-soluble, it depends on proper fat absorption. Therefore, anyone with a gastrointestinal disorder where this is compromised - inflammatory bowel disease, pancreatic disease, malabsorption syndromes - should talk to their primary doctor about how they can prevent becoming vitamin D deficient this winter.

If you want to get vitamin D mainly from diet, some good sources are eggs, fish and fortified milk. For this reason anyone on a purely vegan (non-animal) diet should probably take a vitamin D supplement.

I hope I've helped a little with my first post here. If you'd like to learn more about vitamin D, I recommend the Mayo Clinic and NIH websites.

Take care.

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