Vitamin D and Healthy Bones

Vitamin D plays an important role in maintaining healthy bones. It may not matter how much calcium you're consuming if you aren't getting enough vitamin D. Both of them are very closely related.

Production of vitamin D
Casual exposure to sun for a short duration say 5 to 15 minutes is more than enough to produce vitamin D. This fat-soluble vitamin gets stored in the adipose tissue of an individual. During the lean months of sunshine, the stored vitamin will be released for the body's use.

Sunlight will typically provide enough vitamin D to adults and healthy children. However, if you do not consume milk o or are a vegetarian and do not live in an area with a lot of light during the day, then you must consult your health care provider to find out if you can get enough vitamin D through a diet change or if a multivitamin is best for you. It is also important to note that an adequate amount of vitamin D and calcium is especially important for seniors and may even reduce of risk of broken bones or hips.

Sources of vitamin D
For building your bones strongly, you also need to include vitamin D through naturally occurring food sources. These include eggs and fatty fishes. Vitamin D fortified foods are also available. These include some breakfast bars and some breakfast cereals, soymilk and rice milk, and cow's milk.

This sunshine vitamin is readily available to your body once the sun hits on the skin. The conversion ability of the skin diminishes as age advances from age 20. The vitamin D production would be very low among the person who crossed 65 years. Lack of sun, menopause and improper diet leads to vitamin D deficiency.

The importance of vitamin D
Vitamin D is very important to bone health. Calcium is also required to maintain healthy bones but vitamin D acts as the facilitator to absorb the calcium. Harvard University research confirms that women who included more vitamin supplements and vitamin D food sources in their diet had a minimal risk of broken hips. The research further confirmed that mere inclusion of calcium or milk is not enough to maintain your bone health. A vitamin D deficiency leads to osteoporosis in more adult women than men. The only symptoms of vitamin D deficiency are fractures. Although most fractures result in a broken hip and nothing as serious as death, the benefits of vitamin D supplements should be explored.

Vitamin D requirement
The adequate intake of vitamin D for building healthy bones has been established. A person who is below 50 years old requires 200 IU/day and those who are above 50 years require 400 IU/day.

It is highly advisable to adhere to your physician's advice about your vitamin D requirement. If you're a home bound individual with more than 65 years old means you need to include more vitamin D in the diet as you may be very prone to bone fractures or breaks. As an unfortunate consequence of age, your vitamin D requirement increases and your body diminishes its natural vitamin D production.

Knowing these benefits of vitamin D, why are you waiting? Take immediate action to reap the benefits for vitamin D for healthy bones.

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