By Stacy Kennedy, MPH, RD, CSO, LDN; Reboot Nutritionist
The sun is shining, days are longer and spring is just around the corner! What a perfect time to put winter behind us and harness our favorite star’s goodness for boosting energy, health, wellness and just plain feeling great.
How to Reap the Sun’s Rays:
One of the best ways to soak up the sun’s energy is by consuming more plants! Eating and drinking a variety of colorful plant foods can help us boost our energy and benefit from the sunshine that feeds Earth’s plants which in turn provide us with life sustaining nutrients.
Drink in the sun with these delicious juices:
Vitamin D also known as the sunshine vitamin, is important for overall health and wellness. The winter blues often known as SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) is thought to be related to lack of Vitamin D when direct sunlight is not available in amounts needed to trigger our skin to produce this hormone naturally.
Vitamin D is important for many health promoting properties such as:
Low levels of Vitamin D are common in northern parts of the world, above the 37th parallel. For those of us in the US, that means anyone living north of Atlanta is at risk, not just people who reside in Minnesota or New England.
Correcting insufficient Vitamin D levels may help with a host of ailments and disease risks including:
Which foods are rich in Vitamin D?
Vitamin D rich foods include:
Even with consumption of Vitamin D rich foods, it is often not enough to keep blood levels in a healthy range with certain risk factors, including:
How do you know if you should take Vitamin D?
There is a blood test for Vitamin D called, 25 OH-D. A level of 32ng/dL is considered sufficient however research suggests a slightly higher level, such as 40-50 ng/dL, may be optimal while levels at 80-100+ are considered too high and increase risk for toxicity and overall mortality.
In general, supplementing with up to 2000 IU of Vitamin D3 per day during the winter and 1000 IU per day in the summer is a healthy range if you are risk for low Vitamin D levels, but always check with your doctor and nutritionist first to determine the right amount (if any) of supplementation for your personal situation. The daily upper limit for supplements is 5000 IU per day. Children should take anywhere from 400 IU per day to 1000 IU per day as well especially in winter months, but check with your pediatrician for more specific recommendations.
So get out there and enjoy the sun and make sure you are getting your natural Vitamin D (and take supplements if plentiful sunshine just isn’t possible in your busy schedule).