Are you getting enough sunshine in your life?

Vitamin D - sunshine in a bottle

The well known function of vitamin D is to regulate calcium in the body, having a major effect on bone mineralisation, and general bone and muscle health. Vitamin D is also emerging as a major vitamin in disease prevention, regulating inflammation and healthy immunity.

If you have been suffering from ongoing colds and reoccurring infections this winter, its a possibility that you have low vitamin D levels. Low vitamin D levels have been associated with increased autoimmunity and an increased incidence of infection. Vitamin D also appears to be important protection against viral and bacterial upper respiratory tract infections.

Although Vitamin D is not easy to obtain from the diet of which oily fish (mackerel, sardines, herrings, cod, salmon), mushrooms, and eggs are sources. Only 5% - 10% comes from food, minor in comparison to the 90% obtained from sunlight.

10 % from food compared to 90 % from sunlight

Vitamin D is synthesised in your skin from UVB rays becoming a metabolically active hormone following its stimulation from the liver and kidneys. It then goes to work attaching to any of the 200+ receptors throughout the body.

While we are all very conscious about the hazardous effects of the suns rays, a little bit of sunshine is excellent for health. After all it was once thought of as the giver of life before it was an enemy.