Vitamin D and Calcium, Joint at the Hip
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.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.”
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.
