Green Body & Home - The Importance of Building Immunity - Vitamin D
/Last week we introduced the benefits of Vitamin C. Hopefully, you have all added more to your daily regimen for yourself and your children. This week we'd like to highlight another crucial vitamin for you that actually is more of a hormone than originally realized but very crucial for our overall health and well-being. From our immune system to our mental state and skeletal strength. Vitamin D is an often ignored star of the show.
Vitamin D: Since we are all spending more time indoors as we practice social distancing we have to be even more mindful of our Vitamin D levels. If you can find some time to get out and grab some sunshine please do! There is a free app available on most phones called Dminder. You can use it to track the approximate amount of Vitamin D you are getting when you are outside based on your skin tone, location and how much clothing you are wearing. This is very useful to find that delicate balance between beneficial sunlight and sun damage. You can also get Vitamin D from multiple food sources such as fatty fish, mushrooms and eggs to name a few.
Vitamin D supplementation has been shown to cut the risk of infection with respiratory illnesses by 50% in people that were vitamin D deficient and by 10% in people with normal vitamin D levels.
According to the endocrine society, blood levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D below 20ng/ml are considered deficient, less than 30ng/ml is inadequate. People with levels between 30-60ng/ml are considered adequate. Meta-analyses have shown that people with serum levels between 40-60ng/ml have the lowest all-cause mortality. Studies have also shown that supplementation with 1,000 IU of vitamin D3 per day can raise serum levels by ~5 ng/ml.
If you are part of our older population or caring for someone please be aware that a 70-year-old may be up to 75% less efficient at producing vitamin D than they did in their 20's
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3738984/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3166406/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4971338/
Read more on the VIMSIA PTA Facebook group to learn more about Vitamin D.
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