With the Winter solstice rapidly approaching (21 Dec) many of us are mourning the loss of sunlight and the decent into the long dark winter nights. I thought it would be interesting to provide you with a list of recent web sites, articles and an excellent video on the "sunlight vitamin". Vitamin D which can be synthesized from exposure to sunlight impacts our health in many ways in northern countries. Please note this is by no means an exhaustive listing. If you're interested in Vitamin D or other topics we'd be happy to do a more in depth search for you on more specific topics.

Health Canada & Statistics Canada

• Vitamin D and Calcium: Updated Dietary Reference Intakes (Health Canada; 2010)
• Vitamin D blood levels of Canadians (Statistics Canada; Jan 2013)
• Bone health: Osteoporosis, calcium and vitamin D (by Didier Garriguet; Statistics Canada;2013)

Entertaining video (sort of related to Vitamin D)

• Richard Weller: Could the sun be good for your heart? [13 min]
  "Our bodies get Vitamin D from the sun, but as dermatologist Richard Weller suggests, sunlight may confer another surprising benefit too."

Articles (freely available)

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Carol A. Cooke

Acting MHIKNET Librarian

Neil John Maclean Health Sciences Library
University of Manitoba
e. carol.cooke@umanitoba.ca

p. 204-977-5660

c. 204-290-6710

w. http://mhiknet.lib.umanitoba.ca/