Here comes "AAGAAG's Weekly Health Telegraph" :-)

Today, I just wanted to say something about Vitamin D (cholecalciferol). Vitamin D is totally crucial - and yet 70% of the adult population in Switzerland suffers from hypovitaminosis D!

Kids until 15 usually have healthy levels, because every parent administers Vitamin D drops to their babies. Vitamin D is stored in fat tissue, and is released very slowly - the reserves from the infant droplets will carry young people until their teens.

Adults, however, typically have very low levels. Here come a few facts. I am not including the references for brevity, but I shall be pleased to do so upon request:

- If you go out to the sun, your skin will make some Vitamin D. However, there are a few problems with that. First, the levels are not sufficient (not by a large measure), even if you bake on the beach from morning to evening. Second, baking in the sun increases your risk of melanoma dramatically - and that's really no good thing. Third, if your skin complexion is on the dark side, you will make hardly any Vitamin D in the sun (the dark pigment prevents the skin cells from working on it).

- Amazingly, refilling Vitamin D stores in middle age (50+) decreases the risk of bone fracture by >30%. This is a huge number, higher than any known drug against osteopenia/osteoporosis can do!!! Also, muscles grow stronger (and that may be one of the reasons why elderly break less hips upon Vitamin D refill: they fall less frequently). The study showing the above was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine, arguably the world's most authoritative source of medical science.

- However, the effects on bone and muscle only arises if at least 800 IU (international units) of Vitamin D are taken daily. "Vitamin pills" as you can find in the grocery store are waaay below those levels and are effectively useless. You need to get true Vitamin D in oil; essentially the same stuff that is given to kids as drops.

- The good news: you do not need to take Vitamin D on a daily basis. Weekly or even monthly doses will do! The reason, again, is that Vitamin D gets stored in fat cells. I, for one, take 25'000 IU once a month in one single dose. I have set up an email service to send me a monthly reminder titled "It's D-Day!", and that does it.

- Before you become a Vitamin D convert, you may want to have your blood Vitamin D levels checked. If you have enough, you do not need to take any. But the chances are, you do not have enough...