Why Vitamin D is Important to Your Body

7 Reasons Why Vitamin D Is Essential to Your Body
by Keith Woolley

This article brings to the reader some of the key benefits regarding Vitamin D. A careful read of this data could make a big massive difference in how you regard the exciting research that is currently being published about Vitamin D.

Knowledge can give you a real advantage. To make sure you’re fully informed about Vitamin D, keep reading.

Vitamin D is a major player in ensuring the body’s health. It is a member of the fat-soluble group of vitamins which means that it can be dissolved and stored by our body’s fat deposits. Is the only vitamin that the body can produce with adequate exposure to sunlight. Vitamin D may also be obtained from food. The form of this vitamin that comes from plants is called ergocalciferol (also referred to as Vitamin D2). From animals, it is called cholecalciferol or Vitamin D3. Vitamin D has key benefits to the body. They include:

Calcium absorption – Vitamin D is a very important element for building strong, healthy bones. In the intestine, Vitamin D helps the body absorb dietary calcium, the ingredient that promotes that hardness of our bones. With Vitamin D, whatever calcium we take into our body is utilized properly. Vitamin D also benefits the teeth and gums.

Disease prevention – Since we saw that Vitamin D helps in the absorption of calcium necessary to proper bone growth, it is also important to note that it helps prevent the bone-deficiency disease called rickets in children. Vitamin D also helps prevent osteoporosis, a debilitating bone disease.

According to research, Vitamin D has also shown to be very beneficial to the health of the muscles. In a 2003 study, reviewed in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, many patients who suffered from chronic musculoskeletal pain also had a Vitamin D deficiency.

There is also some potential showing Vitamin D’s capability to help prevent diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and Type 1 diabetes. The results in studies published in 2004 are suggestive at best, but researchers believe it might hold some promise. Vitamin D helps boost the immune system and may help prevent inflammation, which probably explains its role against arthritis.

Vitamin D’s benefits against cancer – The latest research promises that Vitamin D may be beneficial against certain cancers, such as prostate, colon and breast cancer. Tests conducted by researchers on the subject over a long period of time showed that the lower the Vitamin D levels are, the more probable the risk of cancer.

The vitamin’s active form is capable of initiating important responses in the body. One of these is the regulation of how cells grow and proliferate. When uncontrolled, both these processes result in cancer. Again, the evidence is still suggestive and more studies have to be conducted.

If you want to supplement more, you will find extra Vitamin D in foods like salmon, sardines and mackerel. It’s also found in cod liver oil and fortified foods like milk and cereals.

Soon you will come to realise that something you have read here will have a beneficial impact on your health. Then you’ll be glad you took the time to learn more about Vitamin D. Hopefully you will get enough Vitamin D through your diet, but I consider it so important in my own diet, that I supplement more with Solgar Vitamin D. Solgar is the brand I take personally.

Keith Woolley is Research Director of Boots Herbal Stores. As THE leading vitamin companies, Solgar Vitamin D is an important product when deciding how to supplement more Vitamin D. Available here Get your own completely unique content version of this article.