Vitamin D and Health Table of Contents If you live north of the
line connecting San Francisco to Philadelphia and Athens to
Beijing, odds are that you don’t get enough vitamin D. The same
holds true if you don’t get outside for at least a 15-minute
daily walk in the sun. African-Americans and others with dark
skin, as well as older individuals, tend to have much lower
levels of vitamin D, as do people who are overweight or obese.
Worldwide, an estimated 1 billion people have inadequate levels
of vitamin D in their blood, and deficiencies can be found in
all ethnicities and age groups. (- ) Indeed, in industrialized
countries, doctors are even seeing the resurgence of rickets,
the bone-weakening disease that had been largely eradicated
through vitamin D fortification. ( - ) Why are these widespread
vitamin D deficiencies of such great concern? Because research
conducted over the past decade suggests that vitamin D plays a
much broader disease-fighting role than once thought. Being
“D-ficient” may increase the