Diet is not a major source of vitamin D. Perfectly reasonably and well balanced diet may not supply the amount required to prevent deficiency.
Some food items that naturally contain small amounts of vitamin D include oil fish such as salmon, mackerel and blue fish. Cod liver oil is the best source of vitamin D.
The two basic substances with vitamin D activity D2 and D3, occur only in yeast and fish liver oils.
Vitamin D is also present in small quantities in vegetables, meat and egg yolk.
The main food source are those to which crystalline vitamin D has been added. Milk, because it is commonly used, has prove to be the most practical carrier.
The most efficient source of the vitamin is not a food at all, but exposure to sunlight, which transforms a related pro-vitamin substance in the skin into a substance which the kidney can change into active vitamin D.
Sunlight, in the form of ultraviolet-B radiation, providing 90-100% of the requirement for most people who are exposed to adequate sunlight.
Like other fat soluble vitamins, the sunlight activated pro-vitamin D can be stored away in the liver.
Vitamin D can also be obtained from nutritional supplements, For example, multivitamin supplements typically contain 400 IU vitamin D and pharmaceutical preparations can contain as much as 50,000 IU vitamin D per capsule/tablet.
Natural Sources of Vitamin D
Vitamins are defined as a group of complex organic compounds present in minute amounts in natural foodstuff that are essential to normal metabolism and lack of which in the diet causes deficiency diseases. Vitamins are required in trace amounts (micrograms to milligrams per day) in the diet for health, growth and reproduction.
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