The deficiency in this vitamin is linked to many deaths?

Living in the northern hemisphere has its perk such as well nothing much.  I mean the winters are long, which leads to less sunlight throughout the day.  Can’t go outside as much especially when you’re older and not a kid.  The only reason why you go outside is to go work and take of the garbage, oh and lets not forget to shovel the driveway and walkway.  What is dangerous I found out through a family member is going back to my first point of having less sunlight in the winter, is the point of lacking vitamin D.

You get most of vitamin D apparently from the sun naturally.  The problem with living up north is that we don’t get as much sunlight in the day and we’ll stay out too long because of the cold.  This leads too many conditions that are caused by the lack of this vitamin.  I found out that many millions of people die from this because they didn’t get the right amount of the vitamin.  This crucial vitamin is important in helping fight against osteoporosis, straightening of the bone and helping with regulating our blood pressure.  Apparently the list goes on forever on the benefits and not it does not help with hair health, but you can read more on that here.

Other ways to get vitamin D

You could get vitamin D from plants but it isn’t comparable to the sun.  The alternative is to take your vitamin D supplements now this is the tricky part.  How much IU should the supplement have?  This is huge debate but if you follow this chart as a guideline you will be in good shape.

What I learnt further is the fact that many people who live in warm climates still have a deficiency.  It could be many reasons such as nowadays people are staying indoors more because of technology but the main culprit is apparently that you can get the daily vitamin D only through a certain timeframe in the day.  If you go out in the morning to get your daily intake, well sorry to say this but this is the worst time to get it.  During the time of the afternoon, which is the best time, people tend to avoid the sun because it is too hot.  

IMPORTANT – DON’T STAY OUT TO LONG IN SUN

Yes it is important that we do not stay out too long in the sun because of cancer risk which is actually really scary and apparently it is gone up in the number of cases each year.  The point is to go out to get sun for only a couple minutes because that is all is needed.  This is dependent also on the skin type.  For example, for you, you may need to stay out just for five minutes in the sun versus someone with a different skin tone who only needs to be in the sun for two minutes and will receive the same amount of vitamin D.