Vitamin D

Recently you may have heard a lot of talk about vitamin D. Typically, health experts want to see you eating foods enriched with this vitamin so that you maintain your bone strength or density. Fragile bones break easily or they can collapse on each other and give you a severely rounded back called Dowager's hump (you've probably seen elderly women with this condition). And so many of us diet or we simply don't track how much of certain vitamins we're consuming everyday. Aside from eating foods fortified with vitamin D, your body can make vitamin D from sunlight exposure. Of course, most doctors caution that unprotected sun exposure can put you at high risk for dangerous skin cancers, so you are hopefully slathering on sun block everyday (repeatedly). Your best shot is to get most of your daily needs of this vitamin from foods or supplements. Why is vitamin D being singled out now? Experts now know that vitamin D may also help to prevent a host of health conditions and specifically it may support heart health. So in addition to eating and drinking vitamin D fortified foods, like milk, you probably want to talk to your doctor about daily supplements. If in doubt, you can have a blood test to measure your vitamin D level. Experts are also now recommending higher daily values (above 400 IU vitamin D daily) for pretty much every age group. Talk to your doctor or a health professional to see what your daily target should be.