SCIENTISTS are proposing the nation’s pints of milk be fortified with vitamin D after it emerged up to 40 per cent of British people have a serious deficiency, a Sunday Times report stated.
The vitamin, which humans derive mainly from sun exposure, helps the body to absorb minerals which are key to maintaining healthy bones, and aids the kidneys.
Although vitamin D is found in food such as oily fish, meat, eggs and mushrooms, some researchers are blaming an increased use of high protection SPF in the wake of fears about skin cancer.
Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow announced she had been advised to spend more time in the sun because of a deficiency, and was prescribed Vitamin D.
While the British Asian population is thought to have the lowest levels of vitamin D, consultant dermatologist Dr Veronique Bataille says levels are very low among fair women (like Paltrow).
Worryingly, she discovered that sun worshippers had healthy levels of vitamin D, while those who avoided the sun tended to be deficient. Some scientists do recommend spending 15 minutes in the sun a day to help increase vitamin D stores.
But it is an interesting dilemma, and one in which it will become increasingly difficult to assess which behaviours are the most dangerous to our health. What is worse, staying in the sun without wearing any protection, or covering up and risking vitamin deficiency? The idea to put the vitamin in milk suggests scientists are wary about telling people to go back out into the sun just yet.
Given a report by researchers at Oxford University is expected this week to show vitamin D has an important effect on DNA, and potentially the formation of diseases, it is going to be hard to call. In the face of science, our attitude towards the sun may yet be altered again.