Getting Enough Vitamin D Comes With a Host of Benefits

While all vitamins are important to the body, vitamin D has a special place in keeping people healthy. There are multiple benefits for vitamin D as it has several rules in the body. Technically, vitamin D is actually a hormone as opposed to some other vitamins. This is part of why it’s so important to a body’s health. 

Vitamin D gets produced when a person is exposed to sunlight. However, it’s also possible to get it in supplements. There are also some foods which can provide the body with vitamin D like eggs, fish and some dairy products. Often for dairy, it’s been fortified into the product as an additional bonus. There should be no complaints there. It’s so useful to the body that the more ways to get some vitamin D, the better off a person will be. This article is going to look at some of the numerous benefits of vitamin D. Keep in mind this is just the beginning when it comes to this wonderful vitamin. 

1 - Bone Strength

This is likely the most well known benefit of getting enough vitamin D. Vitamin D assists the body in absorbing calcium, which is the main aspect in improving the strength of bones. This is also true for a person’s teeth. The deep relationship with calcium is a reason why so many dairy products are fortified with vitamin D. The natural calcium within dairy is used to its fullest with the fortified vitamin D in the products. It’s a wonderful synergy. 

2 - Helps the Immune System

There are several vitamins which help different aspects fo the immune system. Vitamin C for example is very useful for producing white blood cells. VItamin D instead helps the production of T-cells. This means that the body can better fight off the number of bacteria, viruses and a wide variety of other pathogens that are always trying to get inside the body. This boost is certainly helpful. There have been a variety of studies showing the benefit of vitamin D against a number of diseases, though not all are fully proven and still need some peer review. 

3 - Improved Mood

The reaction of people during colder dark winters is well known. Many people deal with seasonal affective disorder and this is often linked to a severe lack of vitamin D as people don’t get the exposure to sunlight that they usually do. By getting enough vitamin D in your diet or through a supplement, you can help to avoid suffering form seasonal affective disorder at the same level that you would otherwise. 

4 - Assists with Arthritis

Many people suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, which is chronic and painful. These people often are found to have very low levels of vitamin D. As mentioned earlier, vitamin D helps to boost the immune system. Unsurprisingly, rheumatoid arthritis is an auto-immune disease and attacks the body through misusing the immune system. Raising vitamin D levels has the potential to delay the onset of rheumatoid arthritis or even to decrease the severity of it once it’s already happened. 

5 - Better Blood Pressure

There are quite a few studies that have gone on about hypertension. Several include the levels of vitamin D a person has in the diet. It does seem now that low levels of vitamin D can contribute to high blood pressure. As little as a 10% increase in vitamin D could make a big difference in blood pressure. While high blood pressure can come from a number of factors, scratching off one of the preventative methods by having more vitamin D in your body is certainly a good idea.