Some vitamins and minerals are essential for our health and well-being.
One of these vital nutrients is vitamin D, which helps maintain healthy teeth, bones, and muscles.
Most of the vitamin D our body needs can be obtained from exposure to sunlight.
However, in the fall and winter months, it becomes more difficult to do this as the days get darker.
Therefore, the NHS recommends taking a daily vitamin D supplement to maintain levels between October and March.
While this may seem like a simple solution, one expert warned that many of us may be taking this supplement incorrectly – rendering them essentially useless.
Dr Joshua Berkowitz, founder of IV Boost, spoke exclusively to Express.co.ukto to find out more.
He said that your vitamin D supplement should be taken after eating fatty foods.
Dr. Berkowitz said: Vitamin D is fat-soluble, and when it enters the body with foods containing fat, it is better absorbed and converted into active vitamin D.
If you don’t have fat-containing food in your gut at the same time as vitamin D, your body can’t process it and more of it passes through your digestive tract and is excreted, so you’ll get little benefit.
He shared the best types of food to help with absorption.
Fatty foods are best for helping break down vitamin D into a form your body can use, he said.
The best foods for this are butter, oily fish, cheese or meat.
He added: It is even better to use foods containing natural fat and vitamin D, such as cod liver oil, oily fish such as salmon, salmon and herring, mackerel, butter and egg yolk.
Mushrooms are a good source, but they are better for the required fat if cooked in a little oil, butter or cream.
Try to eat at least two servings of vitamin D-rich foods a day and keep your levels high with a daily supplement.
What are some risks of vitamin D deficiency?
Vitamin D deficiency can cause various symptoms.
If you are deficient in vitamin D, you are likely to experience fatigue (feeling constantly tired), constant coughs and colds, low mood, seasonal affective disorder, anxiety and depression, and non-specific aches and pains in muscles and joints, says Dr. Berkowitz. , slow recovery from wounds and diseases and even hair loss.
If children are deficient in vitamin D, they may have soft bones, resulting in rickets, resulting in long, bowed, weak bones that lead to stunted growth and poor health.
In adults, osteopenia and osteoporosis can be caused by vitamin D deficiency, as it plays a vital role in the absorption of calcium in the gut, which in turn is necessary to keep bones healthy, preventing and slowing the progression of both diseases.
The NHS recommends that a supplement containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D is sufficient for most people. More than 100 micrograms per day can be harmful.
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