Available Articles: |
 Back
to Main |
VITAMIN D
Calcium gets all the attention, but if you lack vitamin D, an abundance of calcium won't keep your skeleton strong. What's more, a shortage of D can bring on muscle aches, weakness, and symptoms resembling those of arthritis.
It might seem easy to get enough D, considering that pasteurized milk is fortified with it. Not only that, but your body is a vitamin D factory that runs on sunlight. With 15 minutes of sun exposure thrice weekly, you can make all the D you need. Nevertheless, up to 40 percent of Americans over the age of 50 fall short, says Michael Holick, an endocrinologist and vitamin D specialist at Boston University Medical Center.
The reasons: Milk doesn't always deliver as promised. (A full 75 percent of all milk sold contains less vitamin D than the label states, and 15 percent of skim milk contains no D at all.)
Meanwhile, you're probably using sunscreen or staying out of the sun, impeding your body's vitamin D synthesis -- which naturally declines with age. The skin pigment melanin also acts like sunscreen, so many African Americans have insufficient levels.
Furthermore, in much of the United States during wintertime you simply can't get the kind of sunlight necessary for adequate D production. If you enter the gloomy months with scant reserves of D, you may wind up with a deficiency.
None of this means your need for vitamin D is limitless. Overdoses -- more than about 2,000 international units (IU) daily -- can cause headaches and fatigue. Go overboard, and you might develop kidney stones and calcified heart valves.
The bottom line:
If you're under the age of 50, you probably don't have much to worry about. A few minutes of sunlight on your face and arms each day should do it.
A multivitamin can ensure adequate amounts if you're African American, or if you're particularly conscientious about sunscreen and spend winters above 42 degrees latitude (that's north of Boston for East Coast residents, Oregon and points north on the West Coast). Most multivitamins deliver 400 IU of vitamin D. If you're older than 50 and avoiding the sun, add a separate calcium-plus-D supplement with 200 to 400 IU of D.
|
|
|
