Types Of Vitamin D
Vitamin D first identifies as a vitamin earlier in the 20th century and is now known as prohormone. A unique feature of vitamin D is that it is the only nutrient that the human body can synthesize through the absorption of sunlight. Vitamin D is a sort of misnomer as most of the nutrition labels either mention vitamin D2 or D3, not just vitamin D. The dual sources of vitamin D including diet and sunlight make it quite challenging to generate dietary reference values for intake. Vitamin D has two major types:
Vitamin D2
Vitamin D2 also known as ergocalciferol is greatly man-made and is present in a number of foods for fortification. Experimental studies also indicate that vitamin D2 is naturally less toxic for human than vitamin D3 if the serum concentration levels start exceeding in the body. Vitamin D2 naturally comes from plant sources like wild mushrooms and fortified foods as well including cereal or milk products. The strength or potency of vitamin D typically appears as international units (IU) on food labels and implies as the standard unit for vitamin D. There are varying amounts of vitamin D IU capsules as over-the-counter supplements. Vitamin D2 is comparatively less expensive to synthesize and therefore it is one of the most commonly nutrient present in fortified food items.