Benefits, Sources and Daily Dosage

Jakarta, CNN Indonesia —

Vitamin D is one of the important nutrients that the body needs to function properly. The main role of vitamin D is to strengthen bones and teeth and increase immunity body.

Uniquely, unlike other types of vitamins, the body can also produce its own vitamin D. For more details, here’s a review of vitamin D.

What is Vitamin D?

Vitamin D is needed to help the body absorb calcium and phosphorus. Vitamin D also plays an important role in maintaining strong bone structure.

This is confirmed National Institutes of Health’s Office of Dietary Supplements who stated that the main task of vitamin D, among others, is to increase calcium absorption, so that vitamin D deficiency will cause bone loss and disability.

Vitamin D itself is fat soluble. There are two main forms of vitamin D found in foods and supplements.

The first is vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) which is found in some mushrooms, and both vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) which is found in fish, fish oil, egg yolk, and sunlight.

The body creates vitamin D when the skin is exposed to sunlight while outdoors. When the sun’s ultraviolet B (UVB) rays hit cholesterol in skin cells, vitamin D3 synthesis occurs.

The quality of vitamin D3 that comes from sunlight is said to be much higher than vitamin D from food. The reason is, vitamin D3 is more easily processed by the body and lasts longer in the blood.

Source of Vitamin D

Sources of Vitamin D can be obtained from sunlight, food, and supplements. (Photo illustration: iStockphoto/nicoletaionescu)- –

Vitamin D can be obtained from various sources such as sunlight, food, and supplements.

Sun exposure is an easy way to get vitamin D and avoid mild illness.

While the foods that contain the most vitamin D include fatty fish such as salmon, sardines, mackerel, tuna. Then oysters, mushrooms, beef liver, egg yolks, cod liver oil, cow’s milk, soy milk, and oatmeal.

Benefits of Vitamin D

Vitamin D has a myriad of health benefits (Photo: Istockphoto/LuckyBusiness)- –

Vitamin D in the form of vitamin D2 and vitamin D3 can be used as a treatment and prevention against a number of diseases. The following are the benefits of vitamin D for body health, refer to: Medical News Today.

1. Improves bone and teeth health

Vitamin D plays an important role in calcium absorption and maintenance of phosphorus levels in the blood. These factors are very important for maintaining healthy bones and teeth.

2. Optimizing immunity, as well as brain and nervous system health

Vitamin D supports the work of white blood cells in fighting pathogens and reduces inflammation thereby increasing the body’s ability to respond to immunity.

3. Regulate insulin levels and prevent diabetes risk

Vitamin D helps the body produce insulin, a hormone responsible for regulating blood sugar levels, thereby reducing the risk of insulin resistance, which is a trigger for type 2 diabetes.

4. Maintain lung function and heart health

Research shows low levels of vitamin D are associated with an increased risk of diseases that cause lung inflammation and scarring.

5. Inhibits the development of cancer

Vitamin D is said to slow or prevent the development of cancer, stimulate cell death, and suppress tumor growth.