sunshine vitamin brightens dark winter days

When I got my first smart phone, I also discovered a fun little app called D-Minder, intended to help track your vitamin D exposure. The app looks at your skin tone, size, location, local weather and sun angle to determine how much vitamin D you can get at any given time, or when your next vitamin “D opportunity” is.

On Nov. 15 in Portland, the app says “your next D opportunity is in 113 days.”

All of this is a great reminder that at northerly latitudes, the winter sun’s angle is just too low for natural Vitamin D production even on bright days. The D-Minder folks created this video, which gives the clearest explanation I’ve seen of how this works.

Why do you care? Vitamin D:

improves immunity and healthy bone building, protects against cancer and diabetes, regulates blood pressure and balances inflammation that’s thought to be a primary underlying cause of many debilitating chronic diseases.

(Read more in this Vitamin D monograph from Oregon State University’s Linus Pauling Institute.)

What to do through the winter? If you can’t get a break to the tropics or the southern hemisphere, I recommend a simple lab test to assess your individual need and then appropriate use of a high-quality Vitamin D3 supplement.

How much Vitamin D is enough? My reading of the research, coupled with clinical experience of myself, my colleagues and my mentors, suggests the U.S.-recommended daily values are too low. But seriously, testing is the best way to know what’s right for you.

To find out more about Vitamin D, why you need it and whether supplementation is right for you, click the button below to book your appointment.

 

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Want to learn more about Vitamin D? Here’s a video I made answering some common questions.