Another good reason to get out in the sun – a little!
Find a warm sunny spot to read today's blog post, as I'd like to explain more about how important some balanced exposure to the sun can be for your bones.
Vitamin D is a vitamin you can create within your own body, as long as you either eat it in your food, or expose your skin to some UVB radiation. Seems simple, you think; after all, aren't we exposed to too much sunlight now because of climate change?
Well, it seems that we're spending a lot more time out of the sunlight than we thought. Rickets, the disease of soft bones in children, is becoming more prevalent in Australia. And researchers have found that many adults are deficient in this important vitamin too. Not what you'd expect to find happening in sunny Australia.
But when you think about the amount of time we all spend indoors now, and the shrinking size of our back yards, maybe the return of rickets isn't such a surprise after all.
Vitamin D synthesis starts as soon as you step into the sunshine. Special receptors in your skin create vitamin D3 and despatch the molecules to your liver, where its metabolised to create a more potent form. Then your kidneys do some more work, turning the vitamin it into its most potent form, ready for your cells to use.
This vitamin plays a part in monitoring your blood pressure, and regulating your immune system. But its major role is in maintaining your bone strength and calcium balance. Without adequate calcium in the right places, your bones can literally soften, bringing on rickets in children and all-too-breakable bones in the elderly.
If you can't get out in the sun for some reason, you can get some vitamin D through your food, particularly egg yolks and cod liver oil.
So, what's the right amount of sunlight for you? I can't give you a definitive figure on that; after all, different locations receive different amounts of UVB radiation (the kind of sunlight you need to make vitamin D). However its now possible to find out whether you're deficient in this important vitamin with a simple blood test.
Hope you've enjoyed receiving your free vitamin D supplement from the sun while you read today's blog post!
P.S. Since writing this post I've come across a tool to help you calculate just how much sunshine you need to get enough vitamin D. Its here: http://nadir.nilu.no/~olaeng/fastrt/VitD-ez_quartMED.html Thanks to Monida of Nutrition Data for passing this on.
Monica's written some excellent instructions to go with the tool too - you can find them here: http://blog.nutritiondata.com/ndblog/2009/08/how-much-sunshine-does-it-take-to-make-enough-vitamin-d.html
Comments
Post has no comments.