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There have been many debates regarding the usefulness and even the safety of vitamin supplements over the year.While some health experts regard them as necessary, others believe they might be harmful to our health or that our body is not able to assimilate them properly.
The summer comes with plenty of sun, which doesn’t only harm our skin, as it has been widely suggested in the news, but also has some benefits for our bones that need vitamin D to stay strong and healthy.
Whether we are willing to risk damaging our skin just to benefit from this type of vitamin is questionable. Luckily, there is always the option of getting vitamin D from supplements.
However, the UK’s independent Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition said that vitamin D supplements are enough and announced the recommended intake of 10 microgram supplement for everyone who is older than 12 months.
Vitamin D is very important for our body because it helps it absorb calcium in a more efficient way. Due to the fact that people are starting to limit their exposure to the sun in order to avoid sunburns, they get less vitamin D.
“There are two choices, to get it from sunlight or take it as a supplement. There is no third choice. People have to make a choice,” said Dr. John Cannell, the founder of Vitamin D Council.
Vitamin D is naturally produced by the body when it is exposed to the sun. Nevertheless, experts are not yet sure how much sun exposure we might need to produce the amount of vitamin D that we need. The vitamin D council suggest that we should expose ourselves to sunlight for half the time it would take for our skin to turn pink in order to get the enough amount of vitamin D.
People can also chose to eat food that contain vitamin D, such as fat fish, certain types of mushrooms, eggs, fortified milk, cereal, orange juice or cod liver oil, but there are not many options out there.
What is certain is the fact that vitamin D is essential for development and growth. People who don’t get enough vitamin D have higher risk of developing certain types of cancer, osteoporosis and heart disease.
The vitamin industry has recorder more than $ 36 billion in sales last year. Vitamin D supplements accounted for about 8 percent of that.
The Institute of Medicine recommends we take a daily dose of 600 IU (international units), representing 15 micrograms of vitamin D.
Image Source: healthxchange
