Vitamin D deficiency treatment consists of increasing your intake of Vitamin D3. This leaves you with three options (and they can easily be combined) for Vitamin D sources:
- Getting Vitamin D from the sun.
- Getting Vitamin D from dietary sources.
- Taking Vitamin D3 supplements.
Sunshine
One source of Vitamin D is to get some sunshine. Specifically, you need to get ultra-violet B (UVB) rays. Your skin synthesizes these rays into Vitamin D3.
There is an anxiety shared by many people with regard to skin cancer and its association to the skin’s exposure to the sun. It’s mainly this reason that many people do not find this particular option to be the most suitable. There is also the often accidental result of getting too much sun when you lose track of time. While these fears are for sure legitimate, small doses of controlled exposure are very beneficial. So go take a 15 minute walk around the block outside the house on a sunny day with your sleeves rolled up and no sunblock. You’ll come home happy and feeling good.
Food
Another Vitamin D deficiency treatment is to get more Vitamin D through food. The only major sources of Vitamin D in food are found in egg yolks, wild-caught oily fish, fish oil, and beef liver. A few examples of some oily fish are salmon, tuna, blue fish, and mackerel. Whether you believe in evolution or a divine creator, this fact is remarkable. Humans near the equator get all of the Vitamin D they need from their exposure to sunlight. As humans migrated further north and settled in climates that can go six months without any sunlight at all, the lack of Vitamin D could impose significant risks to their health. These cultures historically have eaten a diet almost entirely focused on fish, and in particular, the fish that naturally carry large amounts of Vitamin D. Therefore the lack of Vitamin D caused by low levels of sunlight was resolved by happening upon a food source that would supply the Vitamin D necessary.
Unfortunately, in our diets today, it is rarely possible if not impossible to get enough Vitamin D from foods, making it unlikely this option could be used alone.
Supplements
I highly recommend supplements as a way to treat and prevent a deficiency, because even if you aren’t averse to eating egg yolks, fish or beef liver, you are still not likely to get enough of the Vitamin D3 you need from dietary sources alone (though I encourage you to get what you can from clean, whole foods).
Probably the most effective Vitamin D deficiency treatment, take a high quality supplement. You’ll be sure to get enough of what you need without any of the concerns from the other two sources. The one I use is from Vital Choice, and I love it because it comes in wild-caught salmon oil (pure & natural), so it combines the supplement with a dietary source of Vitamin D3 as well.
