V I T A M I N D

🌙 It’s getting harder isn’t it? Getting up in the morning and motivating ourselves. The dark starts to the day are beginning to creep into the morning routine along with the thicker coats and the start of snotty noses.

🙏But after a year like no other in living memory, autumn feels uncertain and a little scary for sure. The science has been emerging over the summer about things we can do to protect ourselves in advance and this was debated in parliament this week, as there were calls for a simple vitamin to be made widely available on the NHS.

🌞 Vitamin D. Not really a vitamin used by the body more like a hormone - absolutely and crucially essential to so many functions in our body. And if you live in the northern hemisphere, it is almost impossible to obtain enough vitamin D through sunlight alone during the autumn/winter when the suns UV levels are too low. Vitamin D is rare in that humans obtain the majority from sunshine as most people don’t eat enough of the specific vitamin D rich foods to obtain from diet alone.

🌼I recommend to ALL my clients that Vitamin D is taken during the colder months (Oct-March) in this country - regardless of pandemics! This extends to year round and/or higher doses for people with darker skin colour, and people with certain chronic conditions which is also the advice given by the NHS. (Breastfed babies and children should also be supplemented following NHS guidelines).

☝️Some of the science emerging now * suggests that if you are deficient, you are possibly twice as likely to contract Covid-19. And one large study ** shows that it does seem to potentially reduce the severity of the virus in those patients given vitamin D once hospitalised.

✍🏻 Finally what is becoming more and more apparent, is that dosage could be key when understanding how to use this preventatively. As with all vitamins and minerals it is recommended that you seek advice from a trained professional such as a nutritional therapist, before self supplementing.

#vitamind #sunshinevitamin
#immunesystem #nutritionaltherapy #nutritionmatters
#gingerandpicklesnutrition