The necessity of vitamin D reaches far beyond enabling bone mineralization. Vitamin D is a major player in maintaining the immune, endocrine, and cardiovascular systems. My active therapies practice resides in Rochester, NY. Due to its latitude and mostly cloud covered sky, Rochester has one of the lowest recorded overall levels of vitamin D among the US population! This unsettling finding prompted me to check patient’s levels of D. As suspected, levels were consistently lower than most other parts of the country…

If you:

• Are pregnant, breast-feeding or have just delivered
• Experience auto-immune issues
• Aren’t exactly a spring chicken

Then BAM! It’s time to give yourself some much needed vitamin D love!

Here’s how to protect and enhance your vitality with D!

• When the sun is shining, bask! Research shows those exposed to about 20 minutes of sunlight each day not only experience less colds and flu per year, but were also found to be happier on the whole! Exposure to sunlight assists the skin to synthesize approximately 1000 units of vitamin D3. If you live in a mostly cloud covered area then supplementing is your best option.

• Supplement!!! Boost up with 2000-5000 units of high quality supplemental vitamin D3 (or ask us about the right dosage for your needs). Progressive research demonstrates that D3, cholecalciferol, is likely the most absorbable, bio-available supplemental form one can ingest. While ingesting foods containing vitamin D are obviously beneficial, choice is limited. Don’t settle on milk as a means of reaching your goal either. Milk is fortified in the production process with vitamin D2, a synthetic and inferior form to D3.

• Eat some fish! You’d have to be an eskimo to get all of your D from fish, but a serving of salmon or tuna fish yields between 300-400 units.

At your next visit, ask one of us if you’re getting enough and ingesting a high quality, bio-available form! Like to see the science in-depth? Visit the reliable research at the Vitamin D Council’s site here!

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Christine is an integrative health care specialist, medical journalist and business development consultant. Her mission? Building tangible tools for modern living. Visit her lifestyle, wellness and garden & food therapy blogs, Reaching Beyond Now and Garden Eats.