Vitamin D Deficiency Occurrence in Different Countries
The most common cause of osteomalacia and other bone-related diseases in adults is vitamin D deficiency. Unfortunately, the number of vitamin D deficient people is rising day-by-day. This is particularly evident in northern European countries where the population can't enjoy the benefits of sunlight exposure for a longer period during the year. According to this USA and Canada are countries where vitamin D deficiency because of lack of sunshine is very low.
Vitamin D Deficiency cases in different countries
The number of recorded cases of vitamin D deficiency is amazingly high in Northern Europe. Additionally, some countries where the number of these cases is very high are Germany, England, Finland, France etc. This is mainly recorded on older people living in these countries.
On the other hand, the smaller number of recorded cases of vitamin D deficiency is recorded in USA. There are high chances that these results are caused because of higher use of fortified products like milk, juice or cereals.
In the north of Italy, almost 40% of the female population has vitamin D deficiency symptoms. In Mediterranean countries, Greek women are at high risk of being vitamin D deficient. This is rather strange considering they are normally consuming fatty fish and they are exposed to sunlight quite often.
Insufficient sunlight is one of the main causes of vitamin D deficit in the northern hemisphere. This fact is correct because the number of recorded cases increases during the winter. However, some precautionary measures like adding vitamin D to mils and other products has greatly helped to reduce the number of cases of vitamin D deficiency.
What can we do to avoid vitamin D efficiency?
There are several things we can do to avoid vitamin D deficiency. First of all, people living in countries with low sunlight exposure during the year should enrich their diet with foods loaded with vitamin D. For example, they can include seafood and fish, butter, eggs, fortified products in their diet. With an appropriate food intake they can somehow obtain their dose of vitamin D.
On the other hand, people from the southern hemisphere have problems with the absorption of vitamin D from sunlight because of their skin pigmentation. To be more precise, people with dark skin color have to spend more time on the sunlight than people with lighter skin color to get the same amount of vitamin D. These people should also enrich their diet with vitamin D rich foods.
