VITAMIN D – I was pretty sure it was a Kraftwerk track from the early 80s.

But the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition reckons we need more, so it’s just conceivable I’ve got that confused.

Maybe it was an early Ultravox track, before Midge Ure showed up with pointy sideburns and someone suggested a moody black and white video for Vienna. Midge looked pretty pasty in that (and we are getting near the point now, honest) which coincidentally seems to be what the white coat folks at SACN are concerned about too.

Their draft guidelines suggest we should be taking a 10 microgram pill a day of Vitamin D as soon as we’ve managed 12 months on the planet. Or, to be more accurate, 12 months in the UK, because we don’t get enough of the lovely sunshine which our skin cunningly converts to the very vital vitamin.

They aren’t alone either. Those other acronyminous funsters NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence... anyone else concerned that they’ve cheated a bit there?) have already suggested it should be given more widely to help prevent rickets and brittle bones.

Official estimates suggest 20 per cent of adults have low levels, whilst the risk of having too much of the nice Big D is very low.

The measly level of sunlight in winter is a particular concern, but it seems you can’t win; On the one hand, we’re constantly being told to avoid getting a lot of sunlight unless we’re smothered in a gallon of factor 50, but now we apparently aren’t getting enough either.

If anyone can invent an app that goes ‘bing!’ like your microwave when you’ve had just the right amount, then they’re on to a winner.

At the very grave risk of not taking this seriously enough – a problem I suffer in many areas of life – isn’t South Cumbria particularly at risk? I can see us having to replace our morning cereal with a bowl of tablets and milk, just to get enough vitaminy goodness to make it through to lunch. Either that, or we’ll all be trying to swallow a tablet the size of a billiard ball.

Maybe we can insist on banks of those special daylight lamps being rigged up in the stationery cupboard at work, and we’ll all take it in turns to strip off and spend 10 minutes in there with the Post-it notes and those packets of staples that don’t fit anything and nobody seems to be quite sure why we haven’t thrown them away yet. Maybe they fit the photocopier?

It does seem like a sensible plan, though (the tablets, not my stationers’ tanning booth) – we can add Vitamin D tablets to the list of various other things we’ll all be taking if we listen to advice, like daily aspirin, statins, fish oil (presumably to stop fish squeaking), probiotics and chocolate.

That last one’s a personal health choice.