Kix cereal –“a good source of vitamin D.”
“One serving of these mushrooms will provide your complete daily requirement of vitamin D.”
“A glass of Minute Maid multivitamin orange juice supplies as much vitamin D as milk.”
Vitamin D is enjoying its day in the sun. Increasingly, the nation’s food suppliers are associating their grocery items with the nutrient known as the sunshine vitamin, long recognized as necessary for bone health. You can hardly pick up a national publication over a year’s time without noticing a health piece on the virtues of vitamin D.
Prestigious medical associations and publications have advised increasing the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of vitamin D. In October the American Academy of Pediatrics urged that all children get 400 international units (iu) rather than the previously suggested 200iu. Researchers writing in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association have recommended that adults get 800iu or more of vitamin D, rather than the current standard of 400iu.
A few years ago, increasing our intake of vitamin E was promoted as the secret to good health. Before that, many believed that mega doses of vitamin C would prevent the common cold, among other illnesses. Neither of these vitamins lived up to the hype. Why should we now change our habits to get more vitamin D?
This article was originally published in the St. Louis Beacon.