Vitamin D is a vital part of a healthy lifestyle due to its many health benefits. Vitamin D is important for growth and development of healthy bones and teeth, and is suggested to protect us against diseases such as cancer and diabetes.
New research into the sources of vitamin D has found that the winters of Britain do not expose us to enough sunlight in order for our bodies to synthesise this and produce the vitamin D that we need.
This research means that in the UK, we can’t rely on sunshine to meet our vitamin D requirements. The likely effect of this will be an increase in vitamin D supplements across Britain as we can’t get our entire vitamin D requirement solely from food.
It is important that we lead a healthy lifestyle and as this new research has shown that many of us are likely to suffer a vitamin D deficiency in the winter months, we must look to other ways of meeting our vitamin D requirements. Taking Vitamin supplements and consuming food rich in vitamin D can help to increase a person’s daily intake of vitamin D and aid them in living a healthy lifestyle. For example, Marks and Spencer recently became the first retailer to fortify their complete range of bread products with vitamin D, increasing a person’s vitamin D intake from consuming these products.
These lifestyle choices are important in the winter months when we may not be synthesising enough vitamin D from sunlight in order to meet our daily requirements.
