Four Ways Vitamin D Keeps Your Bones Functional

You probably already know you need vitamin D for strong bones, but you may not fully understand the mechanisms. Vitamin D helps maintain bone strength by ensuring proper mineral absorption and bone metabolism. It works in the following ways:

1. Calcium and phosphorus absorption: Vitamin D plays a crucial role in bone health because it helps the body absorb calcium and phosphorus, two minerals that are essential for building and maintaining strong bones. Vitamin D helps your intestines absorb calcium from the foods you eat. Without enough vitamin D, your body can’t absorb enough calcium, which weakens bones and increases the risk of fractures.

2. Bone Mineralization: Calcium alone isn’t enough to form healthy bone tissue. Vitamin D helps in the mineralization process, ensuring that calcium gets properly incorporated into the bone matrix.

3. Bone Remodeling: Vitamin D also plays a role in bone remodeling, which is the process by which old bone tissue is replaced by new tissue. This is an ongoing process throughout life that keeps bones strong and functional.

4. Prevention of Bone Disorders: A lack of vitamin D can lead to bone conditions like rickets in children (which causes bone deformities) and osteomalacia in adults (soft bones). In severe cases, it can contribute to osteoporosis, where bones become fragile and brittle

Vitamin D also helps in other ways. Healthy vitamin D levels help the body regulate insulin, so blood sugar levels are healthy and stable. Vitamin D can also help with low mood and depression, and brain health in general. It’s great for heart health too, because it helps with heart muscle contractions.

Vitamin D is crucial for weight loss. To lose any weight, it is essential to have a vitamin D level of at least 80 ng/ml. There have been many published articles on this topic, like this one. As a rule of thumb, it is recommended to take 1000 IU/day (0.025mg) for each 50-55 pounds (25 kg)) of body weight.  

How To Get More D

Many people are deficient in vitamin D – about half the worldwide population and about 25% of the US population. This can occur particularly in winter, simply due to less exposure to the sun. Women are more likely to be deficient, as are older adults and people who are overweight. Taking certain drugs can decrease your absorption of Vitamin D.

A deficiency of vitamin D can lead to serious health issues, so be sure to get more daily D. 

For many years, I have recommended a vitamin D level of at least 80 ng/ml. I’m sticking to that.

If you’re deficient, you can take a high dose vitamin D supplement to get your levels up quickly.