The vitamin D is among the vitamins that are essential for our well-being bodyas the roles it plays within our body are many and all of great importance: it helps growth during childhood, it strengthens the bones, accelerates the absorption of calcium and of phosphorus by the kidneys and facilitates the absorption of calcium inintestine. The deficiency of this vitamin is a very common problem, in fact it affects about a billion people around the world.
The level of vitamin D present in our body is verified by measuring certain parameters, such as the 25-hydroxy-vitamin D e 1,25 dihydroxy-vitamin D. It is enough to carry out simple blood tests and in the event that a more or less important deficiency of this vitamin is found, it is important to know the consequences to which it is encountered; these can vary based on many factors such as, for example, age: rickets in the case of boys, osteomalacia in adults e osteoporosis in the elderly and in menopausal women
But what are the real causes that determine one shortage of vitamin D in our body? Under normal conditions our body, independently, should be able to synthesize it, but it is also possible to introduce it through the diet. When our body fails to synthesize and / or assimilate it, the causes can be many, including: taking some medications which partially inhibit the work of the kidneys and liver, diseases affecting the kidneys and liver or an increased daily requirement. Experts advise us that an excellent natural method to increase the levels of vitamin D in our body is to regularly expose ourselves to sunlight.
Precisely for this reason it is also called the “Vitamin of the sun”As a continuous and targeted exposure to sunrays it involves the activation of an endogenous production by the organism itself of vitamin D but in an inactive form. To switch to the active one must undergo reactions from hydroxylation in the kidneys and liver: only after this is done the vitamin is active and has the aforementioned beneficial effects.
Hence, it is certainly a vital vitamin for the proper development of boneand which guarantees the Welfare and the integrity of our skeletal system in general. As already mentioned above, it is also possible to introduce vitamin D through the foods: those that contain a greater quantity of it are mushrooms, eggs, pesce from which cod liver oil is obtained.