How important is Vitamin D for you

Sometimes a little bit of sunshine is the best medicine. A walk in the park or a bike ride probably puts you in a good mood, and a moderate amount of sun is also good for your physical health.

While you’re outside soaking up rays, your body is busy making vitamin D. That’s good news, because this hormone that’s boosted by exposure to sunlight plays an important role in women’s health.

We have known for a long time about vitamin D’s critical role in bone health. More recently, though vitamin D has been linked to having a potential role in a number of chronic diseases, including heart disease, cancer, inflammation and autoimmune disease.

Your body can’t create vitamin D on its own. Instead, it’s designed to make it through sun exposure. In theory, you can make an ample supply of vitamin D with as little as a couple of hours per week in the sun provided the UVB rays are strong enough.

You can also ingest D through food, especially fatty fish like wild harvested salmon. Lot of foods is fortified nowadays, so vitamin D deficiency should be an easy problem to solve. The truth is, we’re just not getting enough.

It’s important to note that we lose some of our ability to synthesize and absorb vitamin D as we age. As we grow older and our skin thins, the amount of the vitamin D precursor (a derivative of cholesterol) in it decreases, too.

Women entering per menopause and menopause, when there can be accelerated bone loss, can slow bone loss by getting enough vitamin D on board. The elderly, who are at increased risk of falls and fractures, also stand to benefit from taking vitamin D.

Vitamin D levels are inversely related to those of melatonin, another mood-regulating hormone. Melatonin helps modulate your circadian rhythms, with darkness triggering melatonin secretion by the pineal gland within your brain, bringing you down gently at night for sleep.

Insomnia, mood swings and food cravings are influenced by melatonin. Sunlight shuts melatonin production off, while triggering release of vitamin D that’s why doctors recommend getting outdoors as a remedy for jet lag.