Study reveals vitamin divide

Four times as many women living in north-east Scotland are deprived of vitamin D because of a lack of sunlight compared with women in Surrey, according to a new study.

The research discovered that those in Scotland were exposed to 50 per cent less sunlight during the summer to make the vitamin essential to protect the body from bone diseases.

Dr Helen Macdonald, of Aberdeen University, said: "We cannot assume that winter requirements of vitamin D are met by the stores accumulated over summer if people do not get enough sunlight to make sufficient vitamin D".