6 best vitamin D supplements to help boost your health and immunity

Exercise and eating a healthy balanced diet are essential to helping your body get all the nutrients it needs to stay well. But there’s one vitamin, try as you might by eating well, that you will need to supplement in autumn and winter: vitamin D. You can blame it on the weather.

Dr Sam Oliver, a reader in sport and exercise science at Bangor University, says: “From October through to March due to insufficient sunlight, a low-dose daily oral vitamin D3 supplement might be needed to maintain vitamin D sufficiency.”

The sunshine vitamin, so-called because we get most of it from the sun’s rays, is essential for maintaining musculoskeletal health by supporting our bones, teeth and muscles. Research has also linked it to boosting the immune system, and Dr Oliver and his colleagues made another significant discovery last year.

“More recently, a greater understanding of vitamin indicates winter vitamin D supplementation reduces the duration and severity of the common cold.”