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Vitamin D

The sunshine vitamin has been in the news lately. Here's what you need to know

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Originally published in Today's Parent December 2007

What is it?
Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin found in certain foods, including vitamin D-fortified milk or soy beverage, salmon, mackerel, sardines and egg yolk. It is known as the sunshine vitamin because it’s made in your body when bare skin is exposed to ultraviolet light.

What does it do?
It’s well known that vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium from food to help build and maintain strong bones. But new research indicates it does much more. “Vitamin D plays a role in immune function and disease prevention, including heart disease, multiple sclerosis and several forms of cancer,” explains Aileen Burford-Mason, a Toronto-based nutrition consultant with a special interest in women’s nutrition before and during pregnancy. “Vitamin D also plays an important role in pregnancy and childhood health.”

According to Burford-Mason, low blood levels of vitamin D put pregnant women at higher risk of developing life-threatening pre-eclampsia, and insulin resistance — a precursor to gestational diabetes. In children, rickets is the well-known result of vitamin D deficiency. But recently, asthma, leukemia and type 1 diabetes have also been linked to children of mothers who were vitamin D deficient during pregnancy or to children who do not consume enough of the vitamin in infancy, she says.

What causes deficiency?
Certain people are more at risk for vitamin D deficiency.

Darker-skinned people, those who completely cover their skin with clothing or sunscreen when outdoors, and those living in northern climates may not receive enough sun exposure to create enough of the vitamin. People who do not consume enough vitamin D-rich food, or who do not absorb fat well, are also at risk for deficiency. And exclusively breastfed infants do not obtain recommended levels of vitamin D from breastmilk alone.

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