Vitamin D is an essential nutrient for keeping bones, teeth and muscles healthy. The body creates it from direct sunlight on the skin when being outdoors.

A lack of vitamin D, known as vitamin D deficiency, can lead to bone deformities.

Between October and early March people don’t make enough vitamin D from sunlight.

Sasha Parkin, Registered Nutritional Therapist at Wild Nutrition, recommended how quickly someone can become vitamin D deficient.

She said: “There is no hard and fast rule about how quickly this could occur as everyone is different, there can be variability between how well someone absorbs vitamin D and also how well they store it.

“In the average person it is believed to be stored for a couple of months but that would be with the assumption that someone’s levels are in a good place in spring/summer.

“It can take less than a month for others to become depleted.”

In the UK, it’s recommended during the autumn and winter months to get vitamin D from your diet.

But as it’s difficult for people to get enough vitamin D from food, it’s recommended everyone take a daily vitamin D supplement.

Sasha added: “People will often get low because they haven’t continued taking it, a scenario I often see as a Nutritional Therapist is that people will be low, take a high dose to get their levels up then their levels go back down (it is not a one-hit wonder). Think of it as topping up petrol in the car; it will still need topping up again at some point.

“A lot of people are concerned about toxic levels of Vitamin D, this is actually very rare from safe doses and it is far more common to see low levels, especially in the north of England and Scotland, because this narrative persists it leaves a lot of people being low.”

So can not going out in the sun for a day make you deficient in vitamin D?

The answer is no, said Sasha. As vitamin D can be stored in the body, one day will not be an issue.

But she added: “with many people working from home more, not getting outside regularly would be a risk factor over time.

“Some people are also more at risk of being deficient, including; people with darker skin, people who cover up most of their skin for religious or other reasons, pregnant and breastfeeding women and the elderly.”

Sasha recommended adults benefit from 1,000IU-2,000IU per day between October and late March/early April.

She said: “If you are on any medication or supplements or have a diagnosed health condition, always check with your doctor or a healthcare professional before starting a new supplement.

“Wild Nutrition’s Food-Grown Vitamin D contains 1000IU per daily capsule and a recent scientific study has shown it to be 113 percent better absorbed than the leading high street capsule and 50 percent better absorbed than the leading high street spray.”    

Source: | This article first appeared on Express.co.uk

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