While the cold winter weather may put you in a bad mood and keep you indoors, one group says it can also have an adverse health impact. Tim Miller is a spokesman for the U.V. Foundation and says many people in Iowa and other Midwestern states aren’t getting enough sunlight.
Miller says that results in vitamin D deficiency, which he says can lead to increased risk for colon, prostate and breast cancer, M.S. and an increase in children reporting rickets. Miller says there are a lot of remedies including supplements and tanning beds. He says the recommended level of vitamin D is one-thousand units per day.
He says you can look on the side of the supplement bottle to see how much that is. Miller says one serving of salmon has 900 units, so that would cover a day. One glass of milk is 400 units, and five to seven minutes twice a week in a tanning bed would cover the need.
Miller says supplementing you vitamin D intake is important in the winter months, then you must also be sure to get some sunlight in the spring. Miller says you need 15 to 20 minutes of exposure in the sun before you put on your sunscreen.
Miller says a recent study released by Boston University School of Medicine, found that people living in Iowa and other northern latitude states are 74-percent Vitamin D deficient during the month of February. And a Harvard Medical School study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has reported that 60-percent of Americans are vitamin D deficient.