How to Get More Vitamin D in Your Diet

Before we proceed towards discussing about getting more Vitamin D in your diet, let's first understand in brief, certain aspects about this vital nutrient and find out why our bodies need to maintain certain levels of it in order to perform various biological functions properly. Known as the sunshine Vitamin (for obvious reasons), Vitamin D is a fat soluble Vitamin and is synthesized by the liver and the kidneys to convert it into a prohormone (calcidiol) and a hormone (calcitriol), respectively. What does Vitamin D do? Well, in its hormonal form, which is also the most active form of Vitamin D, the benefits of Vitamin D manifest as its active role in boosting up the immune system to better equip it against malefic micro organisms so that it disables attempts of harmful biological invasions.

A deficiency of Vitamin D in the body leads to many diseases and undesirable biological conditions such as rickets, weak and brittle bones, osteoporosis due to poor calcium absorption (Vitamin D enhances the body's ability to absorb calcium from dietary sources), weakened immune system, cancerous growths, cardiovascular diseases, delirium, depression, obesity and many other Vitamin D deficiency symptoms. Now, coming back to addressing the issue of introducing increased amounts of Vitamin D to your diet, let's take a look at the various means by which we can include optimum amounts of this nutrient in our daily food schedule.

Vitamin D Foods

There are a lot of food items which are a rich source of Vitamin D. Most of these food items are ubiquitously recommended by doctors and physicians all over the world to people who suffer from weaken bones and other skeletal abnormalities. Some of the best Vitamin D foods that you can easily include in your daily diet would include:-

• Fortified foods such as milk, flour, cereals and various other fortified dairy products
• Fatty, oil rich fish such as salmon, catfish, cod, mackerel, tuna, eel, sardines, etc.
• Fish liver oil
• Whole egg
• Beef liver
• Mushroom and yeast that are UV irradiated
• Cheese (especially Swiss cheese)
• Butter
• margarine
• Fortified juices and fortified yogurt
• Shrimp

As you can see, there are very few natural sources of foods rich in Vitamin D. Among these, UV irradiated mushrooms and yeast are the only natural Vitamin D sources for vegans.

Getting More Vitamin D Naturally

The most abundant source of Vitamin D is one of the most ubiquitous natural resources that we have access to - sunlight. Yes, all those tales of exposing your skin to the sun for stronger bones that we've heard our grandparents tell are true and scientifically proven! Wanna know how it works? Well, to begin with, the sun's rays themselves do not carry the Vitamin D molecules and just deposit them on our skin when we go out in the sun. Sunlight, or the ultraviolet radiations of the sunlight to be specific, just acts as a catalyst in the function of Vitamin D production which takes place in our skin. What happens is that when the skin is exposed to sunlight, the cholesterol precursor 7-Dehydrocholesterol reacts with the ultraviolet radiation, resulting in the production of Vitamin D₃.

To achieve this end, the wavelengths of the UV rays must be no more than 300 nm and no less than 270 nm. This bio-chemical reaction reaches its peak stage when the UV wavelengths are between 295 and 297 nm, making the required wavelength closer to 300 nm. This reaction is common in almost all vertebrates. However, it is best to expose your skin to sunlight in the earlier hours of the day as during that time the UV radiations do not assume harmful intensities. Also, lengthy periods of exposure to directly falling sun's rays can lead to sun burns and skin cancer.

Maintaining the right Vitamin D levels in the body is also necessary as an excess of this micro nutrient may lead to many undesirable conditions such as Vitamin D toxicity, hypercalcemia and various other symptoms of Vitamin D overdose. Also, since it is a fat soluble Vitamin, excess amounts of Vitamin D does not get expelled via urine or perspiration, causing unhealthy storage and leading to adverse Vitamin D side effects. Now that you know how to include more Vitamin D in your diet and how to absorb more of this micro nutrient from the environment, go ahead and reap the full benefits of this knowledge by incorporating healthy sleep-wake schedule and inculcating healthy dietary habits. Embrace good health and it'll take care of you all your life!