When we think of bone health, we often think, "I need more Calcium." It's what we've been told all of our lives. Healthy bones require more than just calcium. They also require magnesium, phosphorus, AND Vitamin D.
Today's health tip will give you some insight on how Vitamin D plays such a vital role in our bodies and will give you some information that you might not already know.
Vitamin D is very important for strong bones. Calcium and phosphorus are essential for developing the structure and strength of your bones, and you need vitamin D to absorb these minerals. Even if you eat foods that contain a lot of calcium and phosphorus, without enough vitamin D, you can’t absorb them into your body. Vitamin D is important for general good health, and researchers now are discovering that vitamin D may be important for many other reasons outside of good bone health. Some of the functions of the body that vitamin D helps with include:
- Immune system, which helps you to fight infection
- Muscle function
- Cardiovascular function, for a healthy heart and circulation
- Respiratory system –for healthy lungs and airways
- Brain development
- Anti-cancer effects
Vitamin D isn’t like most other vitamins. Your body can make its own vitamin D when you expose your skin to sunlight. But your body can’t make other vitamins. You need to get other vitamins from the foods you eat. You can also get vitamin D from supplements and a very small amount comes from a few foods you eat.
Once it’s ready, your body uses it to manage the amount of calcium in your blood, bones and gut and to help cells all over your body to communicate properly.
Without enough Vitamin D, your bones can become soft, thin, and brittle. Vitamin D deficiency has been linked with rickets in children, cancer, asthma, type-II diabetes, high blood pressure, depression, Alzheimer’s and autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s and type-I diabetes.
Those of you living in the Northern latitudes... do you feel blah in the winter? Those winter blues are likely caused by a lack of Vitamin D. Because of the Earth's angle, from November to February, if you live north of Atlanta, even if you sat out in the sun all day, you would not make Vitamin D. If you live north of NYC, that date range is from mid-October to mid-March.
During those months you may want to consider investing in some supplements.
