Government and NHS doctor advise taking 2p pill every day now to stop getting dementia

An NHS doctor says a daily 2p pill could help ward off come cancers and dementia - and the Government recommends everyone should consider taking it right about now.

Summer is over and you can expect to see a slow, inexorable slide in the condition of the weather over the next few months.

Before long you'll be going to and from work in the darkness, with the only daylight you get to experience whatever manages to poke through the workplace windows.

And there's something you need to be aware of and that's the importance of Vitamin D, which our bodies don't get enough of in the UK after summer is ends.

During autumn and winter you need to get some Vitamin D in you. (Getty Stock Images)

According to the NHS, from about the end of March or the beginning of April through to the end of September our bodies are likely to take in enough Vitamin D just from the sunlight we bask in.

However, for the other half of the year, the paltry sunshine we get in the UK just doesn't give us enough of the good stuff.

They say that everyone 'should consider taking a daily supplement containing 10 micrograms of vitamin D during the autumn and winter'.

Of course it's your choice, but the NHS says you ought to think about it and the government is saying the same thing.

A number of doctors, including the late Dr Michael Mosley, said that taking Vitamin D supplements might also be able to help protect you from dementia.

He told the Daily Mail earlier this year: "I take 25 mcg (1,000 IU), which is within the limits of what’s considered safe (anything under 100 mcg a day for adults or 50 mcg for children, according to the NHS) but closer to the sort of doses studies show you need to take to ward off infections, cancers, and maybe even dementia."

GP Dr Lavan Baskaran agrees, explaining: "Unless I'm on a summer holiday, I take 1,000 IU [25 mcg] daily. If I forget, I'll feel low, anxious and tired with achy joints."

This isn't all some conspiracy from the puppet-masters of Big Vitamin, as the latest government advice is that 'everyone is advised to take a supplement containing 10 micrograms' during autumn and winter.

The NHS suggests everyone should be taking them, and some doctors think they might help protect against dementia too. (Getty Stock Photo)

You can buy supplements in batches so large that you'd be paying about 2p per pill, which seems cost-effective.

If you want to get more Vitamin D in your diet then you could try scoffing more oily fish, red meat, liver, egg yolks and various other fortified foods.

Once spring and summer roll back around you should be alright to stop the supplements, though the NHS still recommends them for people who don't often get outdoors or tend to always wear clothes that cover up the skin when it's sunny.

Meanwhile, with all of those Vitamin D tablets on sale you'd best not do what Jonah Hill did during filming of The Wolf of Wall Street.

The movie used vitamin powder as fake cocaine and Hill said that he snorted so much Vitamin D that he 'could have lifted a car over my f**king head' but also ended up getting bronchitis for three weeks.