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Charleston Dermatology Blog

Vitamin D and Your Skin

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You’ve heard it time and time again: Vitamin D is good for your skin!

But where does Vitamin D come from? And how much of it do you really need?

Vitamin D provides a lot of benefits to your overall health, especially your skin. It has been shown to help rejuvenate skin, facilitate normal immune system function, reduce depression, boost weight loss and contribute to the normal growth and development of your bones and teeth.

Appropriately called the “sunshine vitamin,” Vitamin D is most commonly made when your skin is exposed to the sun. In fact, your skin can manufacture as much as 10,000 international units (IU)* of Vitamin D after only 20-30 minutes of summer skin exposure.

While your body uses sunlight to make Vitamin D, too much sun exposure can accelerate skin aging and, over time, damage your skin, leading to wrinkles, sunspots and an increased risk of skin cancer.

So how do you make sure you’re getting enough Vitamin D without exposing your skin to harmful UV rays?

Aside from sunlight, you can also get Vitamin D through a variety of foods and supplements. Foods with Vitamin D include cheese, foods fortified with vitamin D like orange juice or soymilk, or fatty fish such as tuna, mackerel and salmon.

It’s recommended that for children 0-1 year old, you should have 400 IU daily. For children, teenagers and adults between 1 and 70 years old, you should have 600 IU daily. For adults who are 71 and older, you should have 800 IU daily. To just give you an idea of how you can get your daily dose of Vitamin D, six ounces of cooked salmon has more than 600 IU.

Learn more about the benefits of Vitamin D and don’t forget to schedule your annual appointment with Charleston Dermatology today!

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