Could you be deficient in vitamin D?

Vitamin D Awareness Week is just around the corner, and innovative natural health company BetterYou are on a mission to raise awareness and promote education of the vitamin.

The campaign, commencing 19-25^th October, aims to challenge misconceptions about the vitamin, such as proving how easy it is to generate and its important place in our health.

As most of us know, vitamin D comes from two sources – sunlight and diet. But what most us don’t know, is that due to the (extreme) lack of sunshine in the UK, our increased use of SPF and the limited range of foods naturally rich in the vitamin, a lot of us may well be Vitamin D deficient.

In fact, a recent report by SACN (Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition) advised that all people in the UK over the age of one should supplement with vitamin D and warned that most people are regularly not getting the amount they should.

Dr Benjamin Jacobs, consultant paediatrician and director of children’s services at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital has spent years treating children suffering from vitamin D deficiency.

He said: ‘I’ve noticed a big increase in children suffering vitamin D deficiency in the last decade and we are now seeing the condition rickets in children again. As doctors we’ve campaigned to avoid sunshine to prevent skin cancer but we should add to the message – take vitamin D some other way – take a supplement or fortify your food. We shouldn’t be seeing children with a lack of vitamin D in this day and age.’

So what can be done?
Well, this is where Vitamin D Awareness Week comes in. Official Partner BetterYou will be taking the campaign across the country from Edinburgh to London, in conjunction with its award winning BetterYou DLux Vitamin D Oral Spray (priced £7.95, hollandandbarrett.com)

The spray is the first and only oral spray to be accepted by the Department of Health and is listed in the NHS recommended product guide for vitamin supplementation.

Andrew Thomas founder and MD at BetterYou said: ‘Despite being the subject of more research than any other vitamin, public understanding of the importance of supplementation is still limited.  Vitamin D deficiency is so easily corrected by supplementation. By taking just one spray a day of one of our DLux oral sprays, many health conditions and diseases could be avoided.’