The Sunshine Vitamin
There are many reasons to dislike the winter. It’s cold. Few flowers are in bloom. It’s grey. We get fewer hours of sunlight than usual. And besides just adding to the misery of the season, that lack of sunlight can have graver ramifications.
Fortunately, we at the Orchard Chiropractic Centre are here to help with advice on how you can remedy the situation (though unfortunately, we cannot make the sun start shining!)
What is Vitamin D? And is it important?
Vitamin D is responsible for the regulation of phosphate and calcium, minerals that help to keep our bones, teeth, muscles, heart and immune system in good working order. When we don’t get enough, we’re more susceptible to a host of ailments, from more frequent colds, to hair loss, to osteoporosis.
During the spring and summer, most of us will get the amount we need of Vitamin D from the sunlight. Throughout the autumn and winter however, whatever fleeting sunlight we get is not strong enough to give us what we need by simply spending time outside. As such, we need to find other ways of upping our intake.
Can We Get the Vitamin D We Need From Food?
Happily, there are a number of foods that are loaded with Vitamin D. Egg yolks, particularly if the hens that produced them were free range. Oily fish, like salmon and mackerel (a100g portion of either actually exceeds your NHS recommended daily goal of 10 micrograms), sardines, trout, and herrings. Red meat and liver are also good sources, as are many breakfast cereals (Kellogg’s has committed to fortifying their cereals with 50% of an average person’s RDA) and fortified milks. Mushrooms that have been exposed to sunlight are rich in Vitamin D too.
So, there are certainly options for increasing your intake dietarily. However, they are not right for everyone – with most of the choices being derived from animals, it’s trickier for vegans and vegetarians to get what they need from their food.
Are There Any Other Options?
The NHS recommends that, because it is tricky to get what we need during the darker months of the year naturally, everyone should take a 10 microgram (400 I.U.) Vitamin D supplement between October and March (young children, and those who spend most of their time indoors, should take them year-round). Functional medicine recommendations are higher, recommending at least 25mcg (1000 I.U.) and if there is deficiency even up to 100mcg for a limited period of time.
Vitamin D is soluble in fat, so the most effective way to take your supplement is with a meal containing high fat foods.
Another reason to take Vitamin D supplements is that many studies have shown they add further benefits to the effect of physical therapies like Chiropractic, making them an excellent way to help treat sciatica, neck, and lower back pain. It has also been found that taking a daily supplement can significantly lower the chance of developing young-onset dementia.
The supplement we recommend you take is Vit D3 with an additional vitamin K2 to maximise absorption of calcium into the bones. Vitamin D3 is more easily absorbed and the bioactive form of Vitamin D.Â
Please note if you have underlying health conditions, e.g. blood clotting, you must speak to your GP first. Â
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So with all that in mind, ask at reception or at your local chemist/health food store and pick up a supplement today. We still have weeks and weeks of winter left ahead of us, but at least there’s something we can do to make it through the long, dark days until spring finally dawns!
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