Vitamin D is an essential element that we require to stay healthy. However, unlike other vitamins, getting your levels of this one up to the required level can be a huge challenge. Understanding how to get vitamin D in your diet and why you need it there is essential if you want to prevent the deficiency of this element.
Reasons You Need Vitamin D in Your Diet
Like all essential nutrients, vitamin D takes part in a variety of biochemical reactions within the human body. Its deficiency is associated with several dangerous conditions that affect different systems. The part of your body most affected by it is the skeleton.
Note getting enough vitamin D leads to the weakening and softening of the bones. Note that unlike calcium and magnesium, this nutrient doesn’t strengthen bone tissue directly. Instead, it allows your body to process the minerals properly and actually use it for their intended purpose.
This means that without vitamin D, eating calcium-rich foods for bone support won’t help as your body would be able to use the element efficiently.
In addition to its bone-building role The Vitamin D Council, a group of scientists who are promoting awareness of the dangers of this nutrient’s deficiency, claim that this vitamin D is also capable of reducing the risk of cancer.
How to Get Vitamin D in Your Diet
The most challenging thing about vitamin D is that unlike other nutrients, you can’t just get enough of it from food. 80-90% of this element in a human body is produced by the body itself when it’s exposed to sunlight.
Obviously, this presents a variety of problems. First of all, we do not retain vitamin D very well. It’s not a water-soluble vitamin, so our bodies can store it for several months. However, this period doesn’t cover a whole year. This means that people who don’t live in the warmest of states cannot go 12 months on the dose of vitamin D they get over the summer.
The second, and much bigger problem, is that the majority of the planet’s population cannot get enough sun exposure even when the weather allows it. The sun radiation is dangerous in itself, so people today are forced to use sunscreens. We also spend very little time outdoors during daylight hours as most people are too busy working in offices.
Any SPF products reduce the ability of your body to get vitamin D from the sunlight, so you don’t generate much of it even while out on the beach. Therefore, the most natural route of obtaining this nutrient is impossible for most people.
The alternative way is to get vitamin D in your diet, right?
Unfortunately, few foods that do contain this element don’t have much of it, and it’s difficult for the body to use. Fish is the best source of the element, especially the fattiest varieties of it. Cod liver is considered to be the champion among the foods that can provide you with vitamin D, but you must eat it often in order to get your stores of the nutrient high.
Nowadays, you can also find specialized fortified foods that contain vitamin D, such as milk, soymilk, juice, and cereal. These might be a better choice as they contain the varieties of this element that are easier for the body to process on the chemical level.
However, no matter which foods you choose, you’ll have to eat too many of them too often if you want to try and make up for the vitamin D you don’t get from sunlight exposure.
The easier solution that can help you avoid this problem is taking a specialized supplement, such as Vitamin D3 & K2, Vitamin D-3 1000IU, or Vitamin D-3 5000IU. It’s also often included in various bone strengthening supplements, like Coral Calcium 1000mg with Vitamin D-3. You just need to choose the product that suits your personal nutritional needs.
