"Eat a varied diet and you will receive enough vitamins and minerals". This well-known advice unfortunately does not apply to vitamin D. This vitamin, which is important for the immune system and for the bones, among others, is not present to a sufficient degree in our diet. Vitamin D is chiefly produced when the skin is exposed to the sun's UVB rays.
However, there is often not enough UVB radiation in the sunlight to make vitamin D. During the autumn and winter months the sun is too low. We see therefore that the vitamin D3 concentration in the body decreases as winter advances.
As modern people, on top of this we 'sabotage' the production of vitamin D when the sun is high enough. A great deal of our life takes place in houses and other buildings. The (good) advice to use sunscreen when we are out in the sun for longer periods then makes it almost impossible to produce enough vitamin D.
A vitamin D supplement can provide a solution to this. One or two capsules of Vitamins D3 & K2 are enough to compensate for a shortage.
Read more below about our daily struggle with the sunshine vitamin.
It is general knowledge that we absorb vitamins from food through the digestive system. In addition, most people know that our body cannot produce vitamins itself. However, vitamin D is one of the exceptions to this rule. We can produce plenty of vitamin D ourselves!
Ultraviolet rays
The human body produces vitamin D in the skin as soon as it is exposed to sunlight in summer. Or, to be more precise: under the influence of type B ultraviolet rays (UVB), vitamin D3 is formed from the 7-dehydrocholesterol present in the skin.
When a person stays out in the sun in swimming trunks or bikini, that person can produce 600 micrograms of vitamin D3 (or 24,000 IU - international units) in a short time. This takes less than half an hour for a person with fair skin and four times as much for a person with dark skin.
Six hundred micrograms of vitamin D3 is at least 200 times more than the recommended daily allowance! Of course this natural mechanism will not give you an overdose of vitamin D. The good thing about the production of vitamin D3 through sunlight is that a surplus of vitamin D is immediately broken down again.
Shortage of vitamin D
Vitamin D3 can also be obtained from food. However, vitamin D3 is present in food sources only in very small quantities. There is a reasonable amount of vitamin D3 in some fatty fish such as salmon, herrings, sardines, and trout. But many people do not eat them. There is also some vitamin D3 in milk fat and egg yolks.
Due to the limited presence of vitamin D3 in food, we are naturally dependent mainly on sunlight to meet our need for this important vitamin. Unfortunately, there is often not enough UVB radiation in the sunlight to make vitamin D. As a rule, the skin can only produce vitamin D when the sun is high enough to make our shadow shorter than the length of our body. During the autumn and winter months the sun is too low, if it is visible at all. We see therefore that the vitamin D3 concentration in the body decreases as winter advances.
To make matters worse, we often wear clothing which covers most of our skin and life takes place primarily in houses, schools, offices, and factories. This ensures a very limited exposure to direct sunlight.
Sunscreen
The (good) advice to use sunscreen when we are out in the sun for longer periods then makes it almost impossible to produce enough vitamin D. A cream with sun protection factor 8 reduces the production of vitamin D twentyfold! You can see at any chemist that factor 8 is already outdated. Most sunscreens are factor 20 or more. If you apply the sunscreen properly, then vitamin production is almost completely paralyzed.
About 20 minutes of sunbathing with your whole body in the summer sun can generate about 20,000 IU of vitamin D. If you use sunscreen with a high factor, this is easily reduced to 200 IU.
And, to complicate matters even more, you must not use too much soap on your skin after sunbathing. The soap washes off part of your skin fat, containing the vitamin D. Vitamin D is absorbed slowly into the body from your skin's fat layer.
Vitamin D supplement
The limited presence of vitamin D3 in food, the change of seasons, the indoor life, and the 'sabotage' of our exposure to direct sunlight are the reasons that many people choose a dietary supplement with vitamin D3. Certainly during the winter months. Our 'Vitamins D3 & K2' is a well-priced and cost-effective vitamin D supplement.
