Reader question: “What do you think of vitamin D tablets, Doctor? “During the dark season, we rarely have enough sunlight in our latitudes to produce enough vitamin D. Should we irradiate ourselves with UV lamps or take vitamin D in drops or tablets? What do you advise?”
Vitamin D plays a central role in calcium metabolism, but has many other important biological functions that are important for our health – vitamin D should actually belong to the group of hormones.
It is actually released from a precursor in our skin by UVB and converted to its active form in the liver and kidneys. A small dose of radiation is sufficient for this, which we receive almost automatically in the warm season. Fatty fish such as herring, smoked eel, salmon or sardines usually contain insufficient amounts of vitamin D in food. By far the most vitamin D is found in cod liver oil. Children used to be treated with it to prevent rickets, but you have to like the special taste.
Older people in particular, such as people in need of care who rarely leave their four walls, therefore often need supplementation with drops or tablets, which are easy to get in the pharmacy. This is certainly better than irradiating yourself with UVB and increasing the risk of later skin cancer. In general, many factors play a role when it comes to supplements that may be necessary. First of all, there is the color of the skin: in our part of the world, dark-skinned people find it more difficult to generate enough vitamin D from their skin, which is much more strongly protected against UV rays. Age is also a factor – older people often only produce 30 percent in contrast to young people. For this reason, I recommend that you consult with your GP about this. If in doubt, he will have the vitamin D level determined and then decide whether you should actually take vitamin D supplements.
Do you have questions about health? Write to OÖN doctor Johannes Neuhofer (dermatologist), who oversees this column with a team of doctors: Clemens Steinwender (cardiologist), Reinhold Függer (surgeon), Rainer Schöfl (gastroenterologist), Josef Hochreiter (orthopaedist), Werner Schöny (psychiatrist). E-mail: doktor@nachrichten.at
Source: Nachrichten
