Vitamin D, as most of us know, can be obtained directly from the sunlight.
Our body absorbs it, when we spend time outdoors under the sun. If we are deficient in this vitamin, we will also probably have weak bones as well. This is because vitamin D aids our body in its absorption of calcium.
Vitamin D also helps our body to absorb another important mineral as well.
This is magnesium.
Both minerals are necessary to maintain the health of our bones and our teeth, and to ensure their healthy development in growing children. If you are feeling any form of bone or muscle pain, it could be because you are deficient in vitamin D.
We need to obtain vitamin D every day from an outside source, because our bodies do not manufacture it from within themselves. Vitamin D must be activated by our kidney’s and liver before our body can make use of it.
Enzymes in these organs produce for us the most active and potent form of Vitamin D. This is called Calcitriol.
Our liver and body tissues including our body fat can store this hormone for use as needed during the day. The amount that they can store is not very much however, and during the colder winter months of reduced sunlight, we are all usually a little deficient in this vitamin.
Not many food sources contain vitamin D. No known fruit, vegetable, grain or nut, seems to contain it naturally. Mushrooms are fungi, and some types do contain vitamin D.
Grains in their harvested raw state do not contain vitamin D. When grains are ground into flour, they are often then fortified with vitamin D. This is the same with fruit juices. The vitamin D is added during processing.
The best varieties of mushrooms containing vitamin D are shiitake & button mushrooms.
The dried versions of shiitake mushrooms are considerably higher in Vitamin D. These mushrooms must be sundried in order to have a high Vitamin D content.
Even sundried dried fruit though, doesn’t contain any vitamin D.
Some manufactured products such as milk, margarine, some breads and breakfast cereals, and this list even includes orange juice, have been all fortified with added vitamin D. Other dairy products, such as yoghurt, are often also so treated, as well as other types of milk, for example rice milk or evaporated milk.
To obtain it directly from a food source containing it, we would need to include some fish, some liver, or some eggs into our diets. But you must include too the yolks, for it is only that part of the egg that contains the vitamin D.
Canned tuna, mackerels, salmon, sardines, catfish, or herrings are all good sources. The flesh of fish as well as the fish oil, contain vitamin D. Fish contain vitamin D because they consume algae from the ocean which has in turn also synthesized the vitamin D from sunlight.
The sockeye salmon species of salmon are particularly rich in vitamin D. This is because zooplankton are a large part of their diet. Zooplankton and phytoplankton provide much of the vitamin D in the marine food chain. They provide a lot of the diet of many different marine animals.
Zooplankton are tiny marine animals, including small crustaceans and jellyfish. They usually are larger than Phytoplankton, and which themselves are very small microscopic plant-like marine organisms also living in the oceans.
In fact, kelp and other seaweeds contain the only rich natural source of vegetable Vitamin D. They are truly the ocean’s living vegetables!
Dairy foods can include milk, cheese, yogurt and ice cream, but only if they contain vitamin D fortified milk. The calcium in these dairy foods is absorbed more efficiently because of the added vitamin D. Soy products such as Tofu and Soy milk are quiet high in vitamin D as well, being also fortified with this vitamin.
Mushrooms can contain small amounts of vitamin D, varying significantly in their IU value content, and they are one of the few food sources that do. Mushrooms are fungi, and are also packed full of vitamins, minerals and many other nutrients.
The best mushroom commercially grown varieties, button, crimini and portabella, have vitamin D contents ranging from 2 IU, to 472 IU for an average size serving.
The recommended daily consumption of vitamin D is 400 IU for the normal adult person.
Some mushrooms are being boosted and enhanced in their vitamin D content by shining UV light on them. Apparently this is still a fairly new process that is still being further developed within the mushroom cultivation industries. It involves a brief exposure of the mushroom to the ultraviolet light.
Recent discoveries are also indicating to us that some red meats contain some vitamin D. An average size serving of beef liver for example contains about 46 IU of vitamin D. Beef and lamb can contribute to our daily requirements. Red meat is has now been shown to contain a more powerful type of vitamin D, making it a good source.
Manufactured vitamin D is available generally in only two forms.
These are D2, ergocalciferol and D3 cholecalciferol.
Vitamin D2 is produced from irradiating ergosterol in yeast with ultraviolet light. This is a rather cheap method of producing large quantities of this synthetic version of vitamin D.
Vitamin D3 is created from irradiating lanolin. Lanolin is wool fat or grease obtained from sheep. Vitamin D3 can also be obtained from plant sources, or even from pig or cow skins.
Vitamin D3 has been only recently shown to be much more effective. It is more actively absorbable. It is thought to be two or three times more effective.
The sun produces the more natural occurring vitamin D3. In general, it is always better to stick with what is more naturally produced.
Most of us don’t spend nearly enough time in the sun these days. If we are more thoughtful about all of this, and pick our times better, we can avoid the sunburn, and achieve the benefits of a good dose of vitamin D at the same time.
We need to stay out of the sunlight between the hours of ten am to around three pm, although some say even until four pm now, in the afternoon. This is when the sunlight is at its most intense. The sun’s intensity each day does vary however. When it is cloudy for instance, we could go out into the sun for longer periods, than if there is full direct sunlight.
Vitamin D can be obtained from sunlight, by spending time in the sun for a period of about fifteen to twenty minutes, at least 3 or 4 times a week. Walking for thirty minutes early in the morning at eight am will not usually serve this purpose very well, nor will walking in a heavily shaded forest, or even walking outside on a cloudy day, or in a heavily polluted and smoggy city.
All of these factors will have a bearing on the amount of vitamin D absorbed. The skin must be uncovered for the vitamin D to penetrate it fully.
Most people these days do not get sufficient sunshine exposure to maintain adequate vitamin D levels.
If we think about it, our ancestors spent far more time outside under the sun. They were more directly involved with working the ground to produce their own food crops, or in other hunting and food gathering activities themselves.
Our bodies have developed certain physiological requirements. These days we don’t generally have enough sun exposure to allow our bodies to produce enough vitamin D. Clothing and the use of sunscreens have not helped either.
We are scared of the sun these days, and have largely been taught to be so.
Prevention is better than cure, when it comes to skin cancer of course, but we need to be smarter about it all, and to ensure we can get the best of the sun, while missing out on its worst.
Vitamin D prevents a disease known as rickets, which softens and weakens the bones. Vitamin D became classified as a vitamin about the time when the existence of vitamins in food was being better understood at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Some claim that it has been incorrectly labelled, as we now know that the biologically active form of vitamin D is actually a potent form of steroid hormone. It is derived from of all things, cholesterol.
Vitamin D3 is considered more now to be both a vitamin and a hormone. It can act as a vitamin when it binds with calcium. Humans cannot digest calcium without adequate amounts of Vitamin D3 being also present within their bodies.
In 1920, Sir Edward Mellanby, a British scientist and professor proved that rickets was caused by a food deficiency in his experimenting with dogs raised indoors, and kept away from direct sunlight.
He is credited with being the discoverer of vitamin D in 1919 . Vitamin D was found to be fat soluble, rather than water soluble. That’s why it can be stored within your body fats.
Sunlight also can help our body to heal its wounds, small sores, and injuries. In the old days, it was seen as pretty much of a cure all for everything.
The amount of sunlight that can be absorbed by our bodies is not usually readily appreciated.
Sunbathing for only thirty minutes in full sunlight can produce nearly 20,000 IU’s of vitamin D.
(Admittedly though, you have to be dressed only in a miniscule bathing suit to achieve this. The more body that is exposed the more vitamin D that is absorbed)
You would need to drink 200 glasses of milk, or to eat four times as many egg yolks to obtain the same amount of vitamin D. (and that’s 800 egg yolks!)
An average egg yolk contains around 25 to 30 IU of vitamin D. Most fortified milks contain around 100 IU per serve.
Here’s a short list by order of vitamin D content, based on an average serving size of each of these foods. These are all natural foods.
Herring 1383 IU, Salmon 530 IU, Halibut 510 IU, Cod Liver Oil (one teaspoonful) 450 IU, Catfish 425 IU, Mackerel Atlantic 306 IU, Oysters 272 IU, Dried Shiitake mushroom 249 IU, Sardines Pacific 213 IU, Sardines Atlantic 203 IU, Tuna canned in oil 200 IU, Shrimp 129 IU, Beef liver 46 IU, and Eggs 26 IU.
These are New York State department of health figures. This department also lists the average vitamin D content of a typical multivitamin tablet as being around 400 IU.
You can get more potent ones of course, up to 1000 IU and more, but we also have to be careful not to overdo things by consuming too much.
We need around 200 to 600 units each day, depending on our age. Funnily enough, the older you get, the more vitamin D that you will need.
Apart for rickets, vitamin D deficiency can lead to these other nasty diseases. High blood pressure, osteoporosis, diabetes, strokes and heart disease, and even depression have been linked to our bodies being deficient in this important vitamin.
This short introduction must only provide an overview for you, because otherwise the article would become a small book. There is a lot more that I could tell you.
Before I finish here though, I will add some interesting and related comments about the benefits of consuming cod liver oil.
Cod liver oil is very good for you on all fronts. It contains essential fatty acids, vitamin A, vitamin D, plus a small amount of vitamin K. The vitamin D strengthens bones, while the fatty acids help in the functioning of our brains and nervous systems.
Cod liver oil is a substance that is derived by extracting it from the liver of the cod fish. The suggested dosage is about two teaspoonfuls a day.
It is claimed that cod liver oil contains more of vitamins A and D, than most other foods. One hundred grams of cod liver oil contains 10,000 IU of vitamin D. IU, or international unit measures the vitamin content of foods. Cod liver oil is far more potent by volume than other fish oils, such as salmon, herring or sardine oils.
Cod liver oil will improve the health of your heart as well as your arteries. It can help prevent the onset of lifestyle diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, stress and anxiety, arthritis, and also even obesity.
Most good cod liver oils will have been treated to remove the toxins and other heavy metal contaminants which are more and more present in our ocean’s fish these days, but they have nearly all been removed from the oil.
They have been certified to meet Government toxicity level standards within the various countries selling it. They are certified to be free of detectable levels of most contaminants. Mercury is water soluble, and so it might be present in the fish, but it is not in the oil.
Egg yolks are perhaps the next in line as a good source of vitamin D. The amount varies greatly depending on how the hens are treated though. Cage produced eggs are the worst of course, and free range chickens that are allowed to run around in the open air, and sunlight are the best. Chickens fed cod liver oil also produce eggs with enhanced levels of vitamin D.
Excess vitamin D obtained from the sun never seems to hurt us, as it just degrades quickly, because we usually use only what we need to use.
Excess vitamin D obtained from vitamin tablets though, can sometimes cause vitamin D toxicity. This can lead to include things like over calcification of our bones, the development of kidney stones, and also to migraines and headaches. A general feeling of malaise and lack of energy, might also be experienced.
Some small amount of people might be hypersensitive to higher levels of vitamin D. Some health conditions such as hyperparathyroidism predispose you to being overly sensitive to vitamin D, and some forms of cancer will do the same thing.
Hyperparathyroidism is a condition that causes overactivity and enlargement of the parathyroid glands. These glands produce a hormone responsible for regulating our bodies calcium and phosphate levels. Both vitamin D inadequacy and also its over supply are thought to be factors in causing the onset of this disease. Symptoms are fatigue and bodily weakness.
In conclusion though, vitamin D is very good for us, and we probably all do need to increase our uptake of it, especially in this computer age, where we all spend too much time indoors pushing the keys on our keyboards.
I for one, surely know that I do!
