How Much Vitamin D-3 Should I Be Taking?

How Much Vitamin D-3 Should I Be Taking?

Darrell Miller

07/18/11

Date: July 18, 2011 01:18 PM
Author: Darrell Miller (dm@vitanetonline.com)
Subject: How Much Vitamin D-3 Should I Be Taking?

Vitamins and minerals are very important for the body to function well and for you to carry out your daily chores and tasks. One perfect way to keep the body hale and hearty is to ensure that you are getting enough vitamin D3. The said vitamin is very essential because it is capable of improving your over-all health.

Vitamin D3 is truly one of the most vital and useful nutritional tools to help maintain a healthy mind and body. The vitamin is special because it is derived and extracted from 7-dehydrocholesterol. Vitamin D3 also known as cholacalciferol exhibits hormone-like actions when it is being converted to a new form, 1,25-dihydroxy vitamin D3 or Calcitriol through the liver and the kidneys. The hormone Calcitriol is responsible of controlling calcium, phosphorous as well as neuromuscular function and bone metabolism. Vitamin D3 is the sole vitamin that the body could manufacture by itself through sunlight (UVB) exposure. However, in today’s modern world, people usually stay indoors and most of the time would tend to apply sunscreens because of the threats of skin cancer and other skin diseases associated with excessive exposure to ultraviolet rays. Because of this, many people are now deficient with 1,25-dihydroxy vitamin D3.

From that particular discovery, many experts and scientist have greatly recognized the importance of vitamin D3 in terms of bone health and development. Continuous researches are now employed to gather more documents with regards to the special role of Calcitriol in decreasing the risk of fractures and other bone diseases. The latest research that was conducted showed that 1,24-dihydroxy vitamin D3 deficiency is primarily due to a astounding number of various health conditions like depression, cancer, pre-eclampsia, back pain, impaired immunity and macular degeneration.

Because of the fact that people are now more aware with regards to the importance of vitamin D3 in the body, measures that an individual is getting enough of the said vitamin is now getting more common and popular. The Recommended Daily Intake or RDI of vitamin D3 should be lower for older individuals. They should only consume a minute amount (400 to 600 International Units) of vitamin D3 to prevent side effects from taking their toll. However, for normal adults, it is very safe to have at least 1,000 to 5,000 International Units per day to protect them from various illnesses and medical conditions most especially colorectal cancer.

There are indeed a lot of ailments that can be prevented if we get enough vitamin D3 daily. All we need to ensure is that we strictly follow the recommended dose for us. It would be best if we seek our doctor’s advice so that we will not commit overdosing as well as under dosing of the said essential vitamin. Always remember that everything that is too much and excessive is also not good and advisable because instead of helping your body become healthier, you will just jeopardize your health.

If you do not get enough sunlight, make sure you are taking a vitamin D supplement daily to maintain good health and wellness.