Vitamin D and Facts

Have you ever thought about the sun, or the powers that it holds? It is over 92 million miles from Earth, yet it is the center of the solar system and by the power of gravity holds every planet in its orbit. In the same breath, it can ripen a fruit or vegetable to just the proper nutrition. It's ultraviolet rays shine on our skin, and create from the fats there, a cholesterol substance called Vitamin D. So right here we see that we can get good cholesterol from going out into the sun. Something, sadly to say, society as a whole doesn't do enough of now days.Here is a little know fact. Water, even cold water, will wash it away. (So always take your sunbath after your swim.) And once the skin is deeply tanned the sun can't form any more. So regulate your tans for that reason as well as cancer transformations too. Also, the winter sun gradually loses it power, so that even a hot sun on a December ski slope is creating about a tenth as much vitamin D as the suns of July.Vitamin D has only three food sources: An egg yolk (sun-round and sun-yellow); the seeds of sunflowers, which, mysteriously, always keep their faces lifted to the sun, and salt water fish like cod and halibut, which swim deep and far from the sun, yet have rich stores of it in their liver, along with vitamin A.Vitamin D has been mislabeled since, it isn't found altogether in foods, therefore that it functions more like a hormone. But it is absolutely critical to the health of our skin, our eyes and the building of strong teeth and bones.In the past and predominately during the Industrial Revolution rickets began seriously to deform the bodies of children working in factories. At first this bone crippling disease was blamed on lack of calcium. Then recognized as lack of sunshine for even when these youngsters went outdoors the air was thick with coal smoke. By 1919 it was discovered the disease could be prevented and cured by cod- liver oil; therefore the habit of the past, of giving it to children, when they looked or acted the slightest ill. It was many years yet, before vitamin D was identified as the healing substance in the oil.When the body is low in Vitamin D, it also cannot utilize calcium. Calcium cannot be absorbed into the bloodstream or deposited in the bones, nor can it be withdrawn from the bones as needed. Normally we think of calcium primarily as important to teeth and bones. However it has been found that calcium is in constant demand, and every activity we do it is used. Vitamin D insures that calcium gets where it's needed, even if that calcium has to be stolen from the very structure of the bones. When this happens bones begin to weaken, teeth deteriorate.