Vitamin D is essential for bone health, but that doesn’t mean you have to risk the effects of sun damage just to get your daily dose. UV rays can cause premature aging of the skin and skin cancer, whereas dietary sources of Vitamin D don’t.
Your body must have vitamin D to absorb calcium and promote bone growth. Too little vitamin D results in soft bones in children (rickets) and fragile, misshapen bones in adults (osteomalacia). You also need vitamin D for other important body functions.
Vitamin D deficiency has now been linked to breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer, heart disease, depression, weight gain, and other maladies. These studies show that people with higher levels of vitamin D have a lower risk of disease, although they do not definitively prove that lack of vitamin D causes disease — or that vitamin D supplements would lower risk.