Go Retire Psychiatrist

We saw a sign in the hotel elevator that made us curious. Part of it said:

“There are also lots of ways to get out and soak up some good ‘ol vitamin D from our saline pool to our grill and patio area.”

Not to quibble or get too sciency (“sciency” turns out to be a real adjective by the way, at least in the Oxford English Dictionary), but the bit about soaking up vitamin D from a saline pool is a little confusing. I suspect that sentence was about an outdoor pool. But at our hotel, the pool is indoors.

Here’s the thing. You can’t soak up Vitamin D through a window. And salt water doesn’t have anything to do with vitamin D absorption. In fact, the way we learned in medical school which vitamins are soluble in water was to memorize the acronym “ADEK.” Vitamins A, D, E, and K are fat soluble, not water soluble. You can’t get Vitamin D from swimming in a saline pool. Saline is still water.

According to the National Institute of Health (NIH) web page for the public about Vitamin D, your skin can’t make it from sunlight through a window.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t health benefits from swimming in a salt water pool. For example, an article on the Healthline web site says it may be better for people with allergies or asthma, or if you can’t stand the smell of chlorine.

On the other hand, you certainly can soak up the sun and Vitamin D from the grill and patio area. Be sure to use sunscreen!