Eating a balanced diet ensures that you get important vitamins and minerals. Although your body can produce vitamin D, manufacturers commonly add the micronutrient to milk to ensure that you receive enough. Carefully monitor your vitamin D intake to ensure you do not develop a vitamin deficiency. Discuss how much milk you drink with a physician to make sure you get enough vitamin D.
Features
Very few foods naturally contain vitamin D. Your body produces the vitamin when ultraviolet light from the sun hits your skin. Alternatively, you can get vitamin D from dietary sources such as milk. Vitamin D then undergoes transformation in your liver and kidneys to create the compounds calcidiol and calcitriol, which are the active forms of vitamin D. Physicians measure your calcidiol levels to determine whether you receive adequate amounts of vitamin D.
Purpose
Vitamin D plays several important physiological roles. The vitamin facilitates calcium absorption in the intestines, promotes bone growth, modulates blood calcium and phosphate levels, affects neuromuscular and immune system functioning, promotes appropriate cell growth and reduces inflammation. Receiving appropriate amounts of vitamin D by drinking milk prevents rickets in children and osteoporosis in older adults.
Dietary Requirements
Although your body manufactures vitamin D in response to sun exposure, it is difficult to determine how much of the vitamin is produced this way. To ensure that you receive enough vitamin D, aim for 600 IU per day if you are under 70 years of age. People older than 70 should receive 800 IU per day. Failure to get enough vitamin D could cause a nutrient deficiency characterized by soft bones and skeletal deformities in children. Adults who are vitamin D deficient develop weak bones, bone pain and muscle weakness.
Milk
The United States does not require milk producers to fortify milk with vitamin D, although many milk sources are fortified. One cup of fortified milk typically contains between 115 and 124 IU of vitamin D. All types of milk can be fortified with vitamin D, including nonfat, reduced-fat and whole milk. Other dairy products, such as yogurt and cheese, are not typically fortified. Check the nutritional labels of milk products to determine how much vitamin D they contain.
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