Vitamin D is critical to our health and well-being. It is a fat soluble substance that is found in food and can be produced by the body after exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun or an indoor tanning bed. Well-known for its role in preventing rickets, a debilitating bone disease, scientists are discovering that vitamin D is involved in regulating the health of as many as thirty different tissues in the body from the brain to the prostate.
Chances are you don”t spend a lot of time reading the labels on milk jugs. If you did, you”d see that most commercially produced milks are fortified with vitamin D as are other commercially produced foods such as breakfast cereals. Vitamin D also occurs naturally in other foods such as mackerel, tuna, and eggs.
Because it would be virtually impossible to derive sufficient vitamin D from diet alone, UV exposure is the single-most important source of vitamin D. UV rays trigger vitamin D synthesis in the skin. Sources of UV light include the sun and tanning bed lamps such as those found in commercial tanning beds or residential tanning beds.
UV exposure from the sun, however, is not always enough to trigger vitamin D synthesis in skin. Geographic location, the season, your skin type, and even the time of day all play a role in vitamin D synthesis. If you live in an area prone to long winters, such as the Northeast United States, winter sunlight is too weak to provoke a decent synthesis response. If you live in an area with regular cloud cover, such as Seattle, or an area that has a lot of smog, such as Los Angeles, UV rays from the sun are reduced by 60 percent.
Physicians today are seeing an increase-some are calling it an epidemic-in vitamin D deficiency throughout the United States. If you live in an area with long winters, lots of smog, or cloud cover, or your skin type is dark, the UV rays emitted by tanning bed lamps in commercial tanning beds and home tanning beds may be a good alternative to sunlight for you.
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