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Many of you would have been made aware of a recent campaign for vitamin D and in particular, the dangers of lacking in it. Here is a short article to explain what it is, where it comes from and the dangers associated with it.

What is Vitamin D and where do i get it?

Vitamin D is a hormone, which encourages the absorption and metabolism of the bone minerals calcium and phosphorous and is therefore important in bone health. A severe lack of vitamin D can lead to bone deficiency diseases like rickets, a bone softening disease. People who are exposed to normal quantities of sunlight do not need vitamin D supplements because sunlight promotes sufficient vitamin D synthesis in the skin.

Government guidelines recommend that some groups, including the under-fives, should take it as a daily supplement. However, recent research found that many parents and health professionals were not aware of the advice. There has been an increase in childhood rickets over the past 15 years. So with that said, who needs to supplement their intakes of vitamin D and how?…

Dr Benjamin Jacobs warns of misinformation in the public domain – “the message can sometimes be that as long as your diet is good, you don’t need vitamins, which is fundamentaly wrong”. You can see the recent BBC report here. Vitamin D is only available in small amounts in food and we get most of it from sunshine. Foods that do contain vitamin D are oily fish, eggs and meat. Some foods have vitamin D added to them (fortified foods).

Who is at risk from vitamin D deficiency?

The governement suggest that most people can get all the vitamin D they need by eating a healthy, balanced diet and getting a little sun. However, Since vitamin D isn’t naturally present in many foods, it isn’t easy to achieve optimal vitamin D intake from food sources alone. The risk of skin cancer from excessive sunlight or sun-bed exposure opens an important debate over spending more time in the sun to increase vitamin D levels. Therefore, most experts now agree that supplementation is currently the safest and most effective method of achieving optimal vitamin D status. Supplements should contain vitamin D in the form of vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol), since this is the form naturally produced by the skin upon exposure to sunlight and research has shown this is the most efficient form to increase vitamin D levels.1

The Department of Health recommends a daily vitamin D supplement for the following people. 2:

• all children aged six months to five years (see below)
• all pregnant and breastfeeding women
• all people aged 65 and over
• people who aren’t exposed to much sun, for example people who cover up their skin for cultural reasons, or people who are housebound (stay indoors) for long periods of time
• people with darker skin, such as people of African-Caribbean and South Asian origin

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