If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you know I spent a portion of my weekend relaxing outdoors, soaking up the natural vitamin D the sunlight so perfectly provides.

As you no doubt know by now, sunlight is the very best source of vitamin D, and has been identified as helping to reduce the risk of things like cardiovascular disease and various types of cancers (the sunscreen Nazis will lead you to believe that you’re putting yourself at risk for cancer by being out in the sun, even for 20 minutes, without lathering yourself in sunscreen; funny how they fail to mention how sunscreen prevents the body from absorbing vitamin D).

Vitamin D is so beneficial to the body and prevents so many diseases, in fact, that it’s been implicated in boosting one risk for the jackpot of diseases:  Metabolic syndrome.

If you hit this “jackpot of diseases” – and an estimated 50 million Americans have – you have to be concerned about the unholy trinity that defines metabolic syndrome: diabetes (because you’re overweight), coronary artery disease (because you have a high triglyceride count in the blood), and hypertension (because you have high blood pressure),

And many people hailing from China appear to be on their way to hitting this jackpot, thanks to some very unlucky numbers.

What are those unfortunate figures?  Nine, four and two, as in 94 percent of 3,500 Chinese volunteers tested by researchers were deficient in vitamin D!  And when they investigated those findings further, almost half the participants had metabolic syndrome (42 percent).

The participants ranged in age from 50 to 70, and included men and women from China.  The study was conducted jointly by researchers from the Shanghai Institute of Biological Sciences and the Warwick Medical School based in England.  It appears in the current edition of the journal Diabetes Care.

The low-levels of vitamin D in Americans is well-known, but apparently it’s well-known among the Chinese contingent as well, as the study refers to the fact that vitamin D insufficiency is reaching global proportions.

As mentioned, sunlight is your best source for this vital ‘D’fensive vitamin, as it “d” fends the body from cancer (cutting the risk by 25 percent, according to the Annals of Epidemiology) and protects women from infection during pregnancy (according to the Journal of Nutrition).  All it takes is 20 to 30 minutes a day for vitamin D stores to be replenished and do their work.

Food sources like oily fish and supplements are fine options in loading up on ‘D’, but with the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer upon us, take advantage of these few months of the year that you can do wonders for your body’s immune function simply by being outdoors.

Sources:
americanheart.org
nutraingredients.com