JULY 14, 2009 — The Toronto Sun this week ran a major feature story on Vitamin D — a story that included the headline “why Canadians shouldn’t avoid the sun this summer.”

“Here comes the sun and you’d better NOT stay out of it!” the story said. “The sun, by far, provides us with the biggest dose of vitamin D, says Dr. Reinhold Vieth, a vitamin D booster and researcher in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.”

Vieth urges people to sunbathe for at least 20 minutes — 10 minutes a side — each week in the summer when the sun is high in the sky to make natural vitamin D levels. “My prescription for a white person is to lie on your tummy for 10 minutes and then flip over on your back for 10 minutes on a day when the sun is reasonably high in the sky. That’ll do it — you’ll make about 10,000 units, your week’s worth,” Vieth told The Sun.

“Vieth is not advocating over-exposure to the sun — he wears sunscreen if he’s out at the beach — but he joins many experts in thinking that our fear of the sun may be contributing to vitamin D deficiency — itself a definite health hazard,” the story said.

The story was syndicated through Sun Media to other news outlets in Canada as well.

To read the story click here.