Vitamin D is important and as well as sunshine, getting some from a balanced diet can help.
Vitamin D is also found in a small number of foods.
Sources include:
- oily fish – such as salmon, sardines, herring and mackerel
- red meat
- liver (avoid liver if you are pregnant)
- egg yolks
- fortified foods – such as some fat spreads and breakfast cereals.”
Nicola Storey, head of nutrition and dietetics at North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Vitamin D helps regulate the amount of calcium and phosphate in the body. These nutrients are needed to keep bones, teeth and muscles healthy.”
A lack of vitamin D can lead to bone deformities such as rickets in children, and bone pain caused by a condition called osteomalacia in adults.
Government advice is that everyone should consider taking a daily vitamin D supplement during the autumn and winter.
How much vitamin D do I need?
From about late March/early April to the end of September, the majority of people should be able to make all the vitamin D they need from sunlight on their skin.
Children from the age of 1 year and adults need 10 micrograms (mcg) of vitamin D a day. This includes pregnant and breastfeeding women, and people at risk of vitamin D deficiency.
Babies up to the age of 1 year need 8.5 to 10 micrograms of vitamin D a day.
A microgram (mcg) is 1,000 times smaller than a milligram (mg). The word microgram is sometimes written with the Greek symbol μ followed by the letter g (μg).
Sometimes the amount of vitamin D is expressed as International Units (IU). 1 microgram of vitamin D is equal to 40 IU. So 10 micrograms of vitamin D is equal to 400 IU.
Advice for infants and young children
The Department of Health and Social Care recommends that babies from birth to 1 year of age should have a daily supplement containing 8.5 to 10 micrograms of vitamin D throughout the year if they are:
- breastfed
- formula-fed and are having less than 500ml (about a pint) of infant formula a day, as infant formula is already fortified with vitamin D.
Children aged 1 to 4 years old should be given a daily supplement containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D throughout the year.
You can buy vitamin D supplements or vitamin drops containing vitamin D (for under 5s) at most pharmacies and supermarkets.
Women and children who qualify for the Healthy Start scheme can get free supplements containing vitamin D.
See the Healthy Start website for more information.