Rickets is a nasty condition. Lack of vitamin D and all that. Problem for you? No, me neither… So why…?
Everyone should consider taking vitamin D supplements in autumn and winter, public health advice for the UK recommends.
It comes as a government-commissioned report sets the recommended levels at 10 micrograms of the vitamin a day.
But officials are concerned this may not be achievable through diet alone, particularly when sunlight, which helps in vitamin D production, is scarce.
What? Seriously? I realise that we get a great deal of rain on this damp little island, but scarce? We managed to stamp out rickets a century or more ago, despite the apparent scarcity of sunlight, so why now are they telling us we all need supplements?
Couldn’t be anything to do with this, could it?
Nah… They’d have said. Well, in a way, they did, but it’s all a bit weaselly:
For example, people whose skin has little exposure to the sun, or who always cover their skin to go outside, should take the supplements throughout the year.
Rather than come right out and say it, they use a scatter-gun approach and suggest that we all need to take supplements.
Bog off!
Vit D as a molecule looks very much like a hormone and so probably interacts with a whole lot of pathways within the body which are only now starting to be explored. As a very fair, Celtic background, immigrant to the soggy isle I battled not so much with depression, more a feeling a light switch inside me was off from October to March. D3 supplementation sorted that.
If people want to wear that kind of gear, good luck to them. Leave the rest of us alone.
I’m as anti-Islam as most sane people and I’m sure there are a lot of weasel words on the subject, but many of us are more likely to be Vit D deficient than before. Fewer of us work outside and more of us cover up as a protection from the sun. I particularly have to as I burn very easily. You can’t get enough Vit D from diet alone.
I’m prescribed high dose Vit D and would suffer without it.
You guys who need to take vitamin D supplements because of medical conditions seem to be missing the point somewhat. Some people need to take them, that is not in dispute. Public Health UK is recommending that everyone starts to take them whther they need to or not.