Disease Proof

Sometimes I wonder about things. Like, why is the sky blue? Why do men have nipples? Why do we park in a driveway and drive on a parkway? Or, why is proper vitamin D intake important to calcium absorption? Dr. Fuhrman explains:

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that your body makes after exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun. Vitamin D functions as a hormone because it sends a message to the intestines to increase the absorption of calcium and phosphorus.

Sadly, Dr. Fuhrman had nothing on the whole driveway-parkway thing. Now, check out this parroting of good information. Reuters reports, vitamin D ups calcium's bone-building effect. Here’s an excerpt:

The women were between 70 and 80 years old. After 1 year, bone mineral density at the hip was preserved in the calcium group and the calcium+vitamin D group, but not in the double-placebo "control" group.


However, at 3 and 5 years, only the group that got calcium plus vitamin D group maintained hip bone density, the investigators report in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

They conclude that adequate levels of vitamin D are necessary for calcium to do its job in keeping bones healthy.

Oh dear, now I’m wondering again. Where do get all this “vitamin D?” Well, George Harrison once sung, “Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter. Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here. Here comes the sun, here comes the sun.”