The number one truth you might think you know about vitamin D is that you probably aren’t getting enough of it.
Here, all the benefits of vitamin D you might not know, plus some bad stuff that might happen if you don’t change your ways…
Your bones won’t disintegrate
As you may already know, vitamin D promotes calcium absorption so your skeleton doesn’t go crumbly or misshapen. That’s why, in the 1930s, the US government started adding vitamin D to milk. In adults, deficiency can cause a similar softening of the bones, which looks like this.
You can eat more cheese
Maybe help yourself to an ounce of Swiss cheese, one of the few foods that naturally contain vitamin D.
Salmon and eggs are even better sources, so you might be excited to have more of those too, while on the less-appetising-but-healthy end of the menu, we’ve got cod liver oil (fishy burps) and beef liver (metallic burps).
It gives you an excuse to take a lunch break
Studies have shown that it can take as little as five minutes of sun exposure to help maintain adequate vitamin D levels, so if your boss says, ‘And where do you think you’re going?’ just reply that you’re stepping out to avoid getting osteoporosis.
Something about cancer?
While further research is still needed to determine if vitamin D actually does anything in this department, or if not getting enough does something else in a different, more harmful department, some trials suggest that it could play a role in preventing colon, prostate, and breast cancers.
But in other trials, it didn’t do much of anything. And in yet more trials, people with the highest levels of vitamin D still got cancer. But until science comes back with an answer, it doesn’t make that much of a difference We need vitamin D to support overall health, so keep choking down that cod liver oil and chasing it with a walk around the block.
