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Experts recommend vitamin D testing during winter months

Category: Vitamin D Deficiency-Diagnosis and Treatment

With winter approaching many individuals may benefit from talking to their doctor about vitamin D testing, as experts say their levels of this important nutrient will soon begin dropping dramatically.

The reason why vitamin D levels tend to plunge so low during the winter is because the substance is actually hormone that is produced in the skin following exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays. When the days grow shorter and the sun's beams weaker, skin produces far less of the nutrient.

This is why experts say it is important for individuals to stay on top of their vitamin D levels during the winter if they want to avoid a potentially dangerous deficiency.

"In October, our levels of vitamin D should still be acceptable, assuming we have gone out in the sun during the summer," Dr. Elina Hypponen of the Medical Research Council’s Centre of Epidemiology for Child Health in London told the Daily Mail. "But vitamin D is stored for only between one and two months in the body."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 38 percent of the U.S. population has low levels of vitamin D.