What is vitamin D and what does it do?
What is vitamin D? Vitamin D is a group of fat-soluble secosteroids (essentially a steroid where one of the bonds in the steroid rings is broken). Vitamin D regulates the amount of calcium and phosphate in the body. In addition, this vitamin is also responsible for regulation of cellular proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis and innate and adaptive immunity. There are two major types (there are more types which are out of scope for this post) of vitamin D – vitamin D3 (also known as cholecalciferol) and vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol). Our major source of vitamin D comes from the synthesis of vitamin…