Vitamin D – The Sunshine Vitamin

With poor quality sunlight in winter months in Ireland and Western Europe and sunscreen use in the summer months, our ability to produce Vitamin D is reduced. Furthermore, vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin and advice to eat lower fat diets may contribute to reduced intake of Vitamin D.

Vitamin D is often referred to as The Sunshine Vitamin.

So why is Vitamin D so important?

Vitamin D is important as it enables our bodies to regulate the absorption of calcium to promote bone growth and healthy teeth. A lack of this Vitamin results in soft bones in children often known as rickets and fragile, misshapen bones in adults, known as osteomalacia.

Vitamin D is also essential for normal immune system function supporting our resistance to certain diseases. It is also important for brain health and for supporting our nervous system.

If your body is deficient in vitamin D, you’re at risk of developing bone abnormalities such as soft bones (osteomalacia) or fragile bones (osteoporosis). There are indications too that a lack of vitamin D can cause us to feel unwell during the darker, winter months. Vitamin D can help regulate our mood.

Vitamin D is necessary for regulating cell growth and for cell-to-cell communication. Some studies have suggested that vitamin D can help reduce cancer progression by slowing the growth and development of new blood vessels in cancerous tissue, increasing cancer cell death, and reducing cell proliferation and metastases.

Symptoms

General symptoms include feeling more tired, more grumpy and somewhat de-motivated, a sense of the Winter Blues!

Our bodies only need about 5-10 minutes exposure to sun about three times a week for the skin to synthesise sufficient vitamin D. However our bodies cannot store vitamin D and during the winter months we may not get sufficient sunlight exposure, hence supplementation with a Vitamin D is recommended.