Does a body good

Q: Many of your articles recommend vitamin D. But you also caution people against drinking milk. I thought milk was a good source of vitamin D?

Dr. Wright: The food industry began adding vitamin D to milk years ago. It was a cheap way to "protect" the public from deficiency. Unfortunately, it's just not working: Cases of vitamin D deficiency have been skyrocketing over the past several years. Besides, there are so many health problems linked to cow's milk that, as you've read, it's the last thing I'd recommend anyway.

Especially when the best source of vitamin D is even more widely available -- not to mention cheaper. Certain wavelengths of sunlight (found in ultraviolet B, or UVB, rays) act on a cholesterol derivative in human skin, starting a chain of reactions, which ultimately produce vitamin D. So if it were possible for you to get enough sun, you wouldn't have to worry about vitamin D. The problem is, hardly anyone does get enough sun these days, which is why supplements are so important. I recommend 4,000 IU ("International Units") daily for adults and teenagers, 1,000 IU for infants and small children, and 2,000 IU for everyone in between.

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