In India, you can get vitamin D for free if you get enough food, and if you eat fruits and vegetables, you will get a significant amount of vitamin D, according to a recent study.
And if you live near a well-populated beach or river, you might get some vitamin D as well.
The study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, showed that people who got at least one vitamin D dose of 400 IU or less from food per day were able to get nearly 400,000 IU of vitamin A per day.
That’s equivalent to having a daily intake of about 8 glasses of orange juice.
The vitamin D was also found to be safe and well tolerated.
A daily intake is the amount of the vitamin that you need to produce a measurable amount of its active ingredient, vitamin D3, the researchers said.
The scientists, led by Dr. S. Ramakrishnan, said that a daily vitamin D intake of 300 IU or more can be safely achieved by consuming foods fortified with vitamin D. A 300-IU vitamin D supplement would also be safe for pregnant women and those with other vitamin D deficiency disorders, the authors said.
But if you’re trying to get a lot of vitamin d in your diet, you’ll need to supplement with at least 800 IU of a vitamin D2 supplement.
In the study, researchers looked at more than 6,500 Indian adults who had been taking vitamin D supplements for more than a year.
Participants were followed for a year and were asked how many vitamin D doses they’d received, how long they’d been taking the supplements, and their levels of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) and other vitamin A. They also measured serum levels of vitamin B12, folate, magnesium, and zinc.
Participants who had taken at least 600 IU of supplemental vitamin D from food were more likely to have adequate levels of both vitamin D and vitamin A than those who had received only 600 IU, the scientists said.
“There’s been a lot more research done over the past few years to determine the optimal amount of calcium to get from food, but we’ve known that vitamin D is a good source of calcium, and we’re not going to get enough of it from the foods we eat,” said Dr. Shailesh Kumar, a clinical researcher at the Department of Clinical Nutrition at University of Toronto.
“So it’s not a bad idea to go out and get vitamin d supplements.”
The authors said they plan to expand the study to more people in India, which has a higher prevalence of vitamin deficiency disorders.
Vitamin D deficiency can cause bone fractures, which are more common in women, and lead to kidney damage, heart problems, and other diseases.
People with vitamin A deficiency are more likely than others to be obese and have higher risk for cardiovascular disease.
People who are also deficient are at higher risk of cancer and other chronic diseases.