Winter Months Are Hard on the Bones - Fight Back with Vitamin D

Several studies, conducted years ago, determined that long winter months spent indoors or bundled up lower the body' levels of vitamin D.

This occurs because the days are shorter and colder causing people to take shelter from the cold. Getting less sunlight on the skin hampers the body's ability to create the vital nutrient, Vitamin D.

Ultraviolet light on the skin synthesizes Vitamin D which helps transform calcium and phosphorus into bone. It also helps the body with calcium metabolism.

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin, meaning it's stored in the fat cells. Lack of sunshine during the winter months leads to depletion of Vitamin D by late winter or early spring.

A continued shortage of Vitamin D causes newly formed bones to become soft and malformed. This condition is called osteomalacia. A more common term for this is called rickets.

Rickets is the main reason that milk and other dairy products are fortified with Vitamin D. Although cases of rickets have dropped significantly over the years, there are still reported cases in susceptible groups of people.

Susceptible Groups:
Certain groups are more likely to be Vitamin D deficient and develop rickets. These groups include; the elderly, vegetarian children & adults, black children & adults.

As the body ages, the skin becomes thin; fat and muscle tissue wither away. This leads to the elderly being less able to synthesize Vitamin D from the sun.

Children and adults on strict vegetarian diets who do not consume dairy products or saltwater fish, and those children who are breastfed for an unnatural length of time are also prone to rickets.

Black children and adults are susceptible because their dark skin blocks the ultraviolet light that triggers the production of Vitamin D.

Sources of Vitamin D:

Vitamin D isn't very plentiful in our food supply. The main sources of this nutrient are usually from animal products and saltwater fish. The best sources of Vitamin D are salmon, sardines and herring. These saltwater fish contain high amounts of oil, making them an excellent source of the vitamin.

Fish liver oil is a good supplement as it's rich in concentrated Vitamin D.

Other foods that contain decent amounts of Vitamin D are egg yolks and liver.

If you live in an area that is prone to long, frigid winter months, you should check with your doctor about taking supplements or using indoor ultraviolet light therapy. This is also true if you belong to any of the groups mentioned that are most susceptible to Vitamin D deficiency and rickets.