People across the UK are being urged to begin taking a daily pill that can cost under 4p per day.<\/p>\n
Vitamin D, which helps regulate calcium and phosphate levels in our bodies, is crucial for keeping bones, teeth and muscles healthy. A lack of this vital vitamin can lead to bone deformities such as rickets in children, and a painful condition known as osteomalacia, or “soft bones”, in adults. From late March or early April through to the end of September, most people should be able to obtain all the vitamin D they need from sunlight.<\/p>\n
However, as the darker months approach, the Government recommends that everyone consider taking a daily vitamin D supplement from October 1 – less than a fortnight away. Those at greater risk of Vitamin D deficiency, including children aged one to four, and babies consuming less than 500ml of infant formula per day, should take a supplement throughout the year, the NHS<\/a> advises.<\/p>\n Reverse ageing in four weeks, weekend meals could kill you, and too much light at night is bad for your heart – all this and more in our science newsletter<\/a><\/p>\n As well as being absorbed through sunlight, vitamin D can also be found in a handful of foods, including oily fish, red meat, egg yolks, and fortified breakfast cereals. Children from the age of one and adults require 10 micrograms (mcg) of vitamin D daily.<\/p>\n This applies to pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as those considered at risk of vitamin D deficiency. NHS guidance states: “Since it’s difficult for people to get enough vitamin D from food alone, everyone should consider taking a daily supplement containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D during the autumn and winter.”<\/p>\n The Department of Health and Social Care advises that babies up to one year old should receive a daily supplement containing 8.5 to 10 micrograms of vitamin D year-round if they are breastfed, or if they are formula-fed and consuming less than 500ml (approximately a pint) of infant formula daily.<\/p>\n Vitamin D tablets are available from Boots, Tesco<\/a>, Morrisons<\/a>, Sainsbury’s<\/a> and Asda<\/a> for under 4p per pill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"People across the UK are being urged to begin taking a daily pill that can cost under 4p…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898508,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[64,63,137,532],"class_list":["post-898507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-health","tag-nutrition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898507\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}