Tripling intake of Vitamin D in daily diet can help in maintenance of healthy bones, a new research said today.
The new recommendation, made by the Science Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), comes after a five-year review which showed one in five people in the UK have insufficient vitamin D levels.
The human body makes most of its Vitamin D from direct sunlight but food, including oily fish, salmon, eggs, also supplies small amount of Vitamin D.
A lack of this vitamin can lead to a number of serious conditions, including rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults, which cause bones to soften, weaken and in some cases become deformed.
Some studies suggest that other diseases such as diabetes and cancer have also been linked with presence of less amount of Vitamin D in the body.
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.
Powers, an expert in human nutrition, said: "If the recommendations are followed this should reduce the risk of bone disease in the UK population."
"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," he said.
