New Zealand / Health

Call for Vitamin D in food

18:07 pm on 29 August 2015

A nutritionist wants Vitamin D supplements added to food to help cut the nation's rates of bowel cancer.

Vitamin D can help fight bowel disease. Photo: 123RF

Lynn Ferguson, from Auckland University's Cancer Society Research Centre, said New Zealanders were staying out of the sun at higher rates than before, so another source of Vitamin D was required.

Professor Ferguson said too much Vitamin D could also have adverse effects, but supplements could help fight bowel disease.

"The American Institute of Cancer Research - a very conservative body - the one source of dietary supplementation that they're recommending (which) might be thought about as a cancer preventive is Vitamin D."

She said if the Government subsidised a programme of Vitamin D-fortified food, there would be fewer people in hospital with bowel diseases - which would reduce the strain on the health budget.