Vitamin D is an essential component for our body, since it is responsible for maintaining balance in the levels of calcium and phosphorus in our blood and promotes the absorption of calcium, thus allowing the bones to stay strong and resistant. Recent studies have also highlighted the possibility that a good control of the levels of vitamin D is associated with the prevention of fractures, osteoporosis, seasonal influences, hypertension and even cancer and other autoimmune diseases. Let’s see what it means to have a shortage of vitamin D, what are the symptoms related to it and how you can cure?
The lack of vitamin D in the body turns out to be potentially dangerous. To diagnose it is necessary to perform an analysis of the blood targeted to assess the concentration, that to be considered normal (in other words, not at risk) must remain within the interval ranging from 30 ng / ml to 100 ng / ml.
This interval is defined as Sufficiency. The range that goes from 10 ng / ml to 30 ng / ml, instead, is classified as a failure, while concentrations below 10 ng / ml has the real deficiency (in the same way, if the concentration is higher than 100 ng / ml is spoken instead of toxicity).
The level can vary according to the season in which tests are carried out: in winter, usually the concentration of vitamin D in the blood is lower than in summer. Let’s see why.
The term vitamin D refers to five different forms of this vitamin (D1, D2, D3, D4, D5), two of which are indispensable for the man (D2 and D3, respectively ergocalciferol and cholecalciferol).
Vitamin D2, in particular, is synthesized in plants and can be taken through a variety of supplements or natural food sources such as fish, eggs, cod-liver oil and countless varieties of milk and dairy products.
The vitamin D3 is produced by humans in the skin when there is exposure to ultraviolet B of sunlight. It is believed, that to prevent vitamin D deficiency is sufficient just ten minutes a day of sun exposure, but it is a value that depends on precisely the issue of ultraviolet B radiation more intense in the summer and more scarce in winter.
In winter, many people have an insufficiency in the concentration of vitamin D in the blood. These low levels, as already mentioned above, are among the factors responsible for the colorful light and pale skin in cold periods, the sense of weakness and fatigue, vulnerability and susceptibility to the influence of the typical winter ailments, all symptoms of this failure (including sometimes also falls the low blood pressure, which does not always appear related to insufficient vitamin D).
Care, in addition to providing greater exposure to the sun during the warm seasons (and, possibly, even in that cold, at least with a daily walk), is based on the administration of a replacement supplement that uplifts the level of vitamin D in the blood bringing at concentrations more acceptable. One of the most used is the “Dibase”, a medicine that can be injected or simply taken orally on a weekly, monthly or quarterly depending on the prescription.