You probably already know that you get vitamin D from the sun. That’s how our ancestors got it. Unfortunately the research is evident that the majority of people are deficient.
Perhaps it’s because we don’t play outside with skin exposed as much as our ancestors. Maybe it’s because whenever we do go outside we slather on loads of sun screen making it impossible for any Vitamin D conversion to take place. There are multiple reasons that you may come up with but the fact remains that there is a high likelihood that you are deficient.
Here are 2 research article that discuss deficiency of Vitamin D:
“The majority of the child, adult and senior industrial population is vitamin D deficient.” Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism-2010; DOI:10.1210/jc2009-2309
“Large cross sectional studies found that vitamin D deficiency is common in otherwise apparently healthy adult populations. A surprisingly high number of adolescents are also vitamin D deficient. Very recently, Gordon and her colleagues at Boston Children’s Hospital found that 40% of 365 healthy infants and toddlers had vitamin D levels less than 30 ng/mL , and 85% had levels below 40 ng/mL. At levels below 40-50 ng/mL the body diverts most or all of the ingested or sun derived vitamin D to immediate metabolic needs, signifying chronic substrate starvation (deficiency).” Cannell et al. (2009) Athletic Performance and Vitamin D. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. 41 (5) 1102-1110
The above studies indicate that few modern humans living in temperate latitudes, of any age, now achieve levels of 50 ng/mL.
Being deficient in Vitamin D will have major health implications. I will cover those in future articles. But in the mean time, are you taking Vitamin D?