The sun can produce the vitamin and an excess can be found in fatty fish, but nevertheless we get far too little of it.
Few people in the northern hemisphere get enough vitamin D.
More than half of Britons and Americans get too little vitamin D, and more than ten out of every hundred suffer from vitamin D deficiency.
In Iceland, the proportions are much more striking. About a quarter of women and 8% of men do not meet the minimum requirement for the vitamin, and only a quarter of six-year-old children received the recommended daily dose or more of vitamin D. (National Health Service)
These facts are very unfortunate, because scientists have found conclusive evidence that there is a correlation between vitamin D deficiency on the one hand and the risk of getting sick from various disorders and diseases on the other.
Vitamin D deficiency mainly manifests itself in the winter, which is in accordance with the low amount of sunlight here in the northern part of the world in the winter.
In the summer, 20 minutes of being outside in the sun is enough to completely replenish the vitamin D reserves, which amount corresponds to 250 micrograms.
If the intention was to get the same amount in any other way than from the sun, we would have to ingest one kilogram of salmon, 50 glasses of milk or 50 multivitamin tablets, which is fifty times the dose compared to the five grams a day recommended by the authorities of many countries. daily.
Too much vitamin D?
Is it also possible to get too much vitamin D? Studies have shown that it is safe for an adult to ingest more than 1000 micrograms before vomiting, headaches or heart problems.
However, there is a need for more research that can reveal all the possible side effects that can follow excessive intake and as a result the authorities are reluctant in their recommendations.
However, many scientists are of the opinion that people should be advised to take in a larger dose of vitamin D than is customary today, and they base their opinion on many studies that have revealed the benefits of the vitamin.
Carsten Geisler is of the opinion that careful attention must be paid to the general vitamin D deficiency that he says afflicts a large percentage of people today.
“We still don’t know what percentage of vitamin D in the blood is optimal to protect us against diseases and infections, but it is known that even adults benefit from taking vitamin D as a supplement for preventive purposes”. says he.
In the very last few years, many studies have surprised scientists, but it has been found that vitamin D provides very good protection against everything possible, from cancer to infertility and mental disorders.
Scientists at the University of Copenhagen recently gained crucial knowledge about how the vitamin protects us against diseases.
The scientists, led by Professor Carsten Geisler, demonstrated in an extremely interesting study that vitamin D plays a key role in activating the vanguard of the immune system, the so-called T-cells.
Vitamins are needed to start the genetic code
When everything is down, the T-cells wander around in the blood in a kind of inactive dormant state, but an inactive T-cell comes into contact with an awake one, i.e. a substance that provokes an immune response, against which it has a receptor on its surface, it binds to the host around the receptor and kills it.
For this to happen, the T-cell must first become sensitized. The scientists discovered that one of the first receptors the T cell can bind to is the vitamin D receptor, which binds the vitamin D to activate a specific gene that wakes the T cells from dormancy. If there was no vitamin D in the blood, the T cells could not become active.
Vitamin D – Regulates the function of the immune system • Regulates cell growth • Regulates hormonal balance.
“We were surprised to find that the gene that wakes up the T-cells from hibernation should only be activated if vitamin D is available in sufficient quantities”, said Geisler.
In other words, vitamin D is a kind of battery for the T-cells and also a prerequisite for them to attack. This new knowledge further explains how vitamin D works in our bodies.
The vitamin was known to play a major role in controlling the immune system so that it does not lose control in the body, which could lead to autoimmune diseases in our bodies.
In recent years, it has been shown that the vitamin can play a role in protecting us against diabetes 1 and 2, cancer, multiple sclerosis and mental disorders such as schizophrenia and depression.
It seems that there is no limit to the positive properties of vitamin D.
How could it be that approximately half of people have too little vitamin D in their blood, because it is such a wonder substance that plays such a large part in such versatile and vital bodily functions as it actually is?
Scientists believe that the ever-increasing vitamin D deficiency has not the least roots to be attributed to frequent warnings against the sun’s rays.
It is known that too much sun can lead to skin cancer, but many things seem to indicate that we do not get enough sun on our bodies.
