Boost Your Wellness: Must-Have Vitamins for Every Season

Boost Your Wellness: Must-Have Vitamins for Every Season

Summer is in full swing. In between trips to the pool and finding refuge in air-conditioned museums during these hot months, it’s important to prioritize your nutrition. While emphasizing whole food sources is always best, one way to fill in the gaps in your diet and nourish your body well is with healthy summer vitamins. Read on to discover some of the best vitamins for a healthy summer and how they can help support your wellness. 

Vitamin D: The Sunshine Vitamin

Often called “the sunshine vitamin”, vitamin D is primarily made by your skin when it’s exposed to direct sunlight. While many of us get more outside time in the summer months, it’s not always enough to meet our daily vitamin D requirements for health and wellness. Not to mention, factors like gender, age, skin pigmentation, what medications we’re taking, and whether we’re wearing sun protection also play into how much vitamin D can be made.1 

This is why many people benefit from adding a vitamin D supplement to their routine, even in the summer months. Vitamin D is an essential nutrient for bone health and immune function. While it’s found in certain fortified items (like milk and yogurt) and fish, vitamin D isn’t widely found in foods. 

Before adding a vitamin D supplement, it’s a good idea to have your blood levels of this nutrient checked. This will tell you whether your levels are normal, whether you could benefit from a maintenance dose of vitamin D, or if you’re correcting a deficiency. 

Vitamin C: Boosting Immunity and Skin Health

Vitamin C is a natural antioxidant, which helps protect your cellular health from stress and damage that can lead to disease. It’s also important for your immune system and for supporting healthy wound healing and skin repair. Some research shows that the addition of a vitamin C supplement to your diet (generally an additional 1-2 grams of vitamin C per day) can help reduce the duration and severity of the common cold.2 


Fortunately, vitamin C is widely found in fruits and vegetables, particularly citrus fruits, strawberries, and bell peppers, as well as potatoes, leafy greens, and broccoli. One orange provides approximately 85 mg of vitamin C.3 Our Vitamin C with Acerola Cherries & Citrus Bioflavonoids supplement provides 500 mg of vitamin C per capsule. If immunity is your top priority, another option is our Immune Support Supplement with Elderberry, Vitamin C, and Zinc.

Vitamin E: Protecting Skin from UV Damage

Spending more time in the summer sun requires finding a healthy balance between skin exposure for vitamin D production, for instance, and adequate protection before UV light can become damaging. Some research suggests that dietary intake of antioxidants, like vitamin E, can help protect skin from skin damage induced by UVA and UVB.4

Some of the best dietary sources of vitamin E include nuts, seeds, spinach, and sunflower oil. If you don’t eat these foods regularly, you might also consider adding a supplement such as our Hair, Skin & Nails Vitamins - with Biotin & Collagen, which contains 48 mg of vitamin E per serving. 

B Vitamins: Energy and Metabolism Boosters

There are eight B vitamins (B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, B12), which play a vital role in your energy levels, brain function, and metabolism.5 These are water-soluble vitamins which means your body takes what it needs every day and gets rid of the rest, so it’s important to replenish your stores. 

You can find a variety of B vitamins in foods like whole grains, meats, eggs, legumes, and fortified foods. Our B Complex Supplement with CoQ10 is another simple way to add more B vitamins into your routine. 

Healthy Vitamins for a Healthy Summer

Nutrition is a top priority year-round, but especially during the summer when you may also be managing things like vacation season, kids being on break from school, and the outdoor elements. 

Vitamins are found abundantly in foods and are crucial for supporting your overall health and wellness. This summer, you might also find it helpful to add supplements to fill in the gaps. Check out our full collection of summer supplements here. 


Sources

  1. Amrein K, Scherkl M, Hoffmann M, et al. Vitamin D deficiency 2.0: an update on the current status worldwide. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2020;74(11):1498-1513. doi:10.1038/s41430-020-0558-y
  2. Bucher A, White N. Vitamin C in the Prevention and Treatment of the Common Cold. Am J Lifestyle Med. 2016;10(3):181-183. Published 2016 Feb 9. doi:10.1177/1559827616629092
  3. USDA FoodData Central. Oranges, raw, navels. Retrieved from: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/746771/nutrients 
  4. Fernández-García E. Skin protection against UV light by dietary antioxidants. Food Funct. 2014;5(9):1994-2003. doi:10.1039/c4fo00280f
  5. Hanna M, Jaqua E, Nguyen V, Clay J. B Vitamins: Functions and Uses in Medicine. Perm J. 2022;26(2):89-97. doi:10.7812/TPP/21.204

← →