Scientists recommend to triple daily vitamin D intake
UK-based Science Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) has been revealed that one in five people in the UK have insufficient vitamin D levels.
The review, chaired by Professor Hilary Powers from the Department of Oncology and Metabolism at the University of Sheffield, concluded that in order to protect bone and muscle health, everyone over one year of age needs 10 micrograms (10ug) vitamin D daily.
Groups most at risk of vitamin D deficiency include people who don’t spend a lot of time outdoors, such as the elderly, ethnic minority groups with darker skin, which doesn’t make vitamin D as easily, those who cover their skin for religious and cultural reasons, people in occupations with limited sunlight exposure, such as night shift workers.
Powers said, “If the recommendations are followed this should reduce the risk of bone disease in the UK population. The review concluded that to protect bone and muscle health people should achieve a blood concentration of vitamin D of 25nmol/L all the year round. Until now it has been assumed that sunlight would provide the vitamin D needed by most of the population all the year round. We now know this is not true because about one in five people in the UK have a low blood level of vitamin D.”
The SACN have recommended that in order to achieve this blood level people in the UK need 10ug vitamin D daily. However, the average intake of vitamin D from food and supplements is only about 3ug.
“The government now needs to look at the evidence and recommendations in the report and consider a strategy to help people in the UK increase their vitamin D intake,” the report stated.
SACN is supported in its work by a secretariat provided by Public Health England.
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