Diet

Roles of calcium and vitamin D

Calcium and vitamin D work together to protect your bones—calcium helps build and maintain bones, while vitamin D helps your body effectively absorb calcium. So even if you're taking in enough calcium, it could be going to waste if you're deficient in vitamin D.

Why is vitamin D so important?
Vitamin D is one of many vitamins our bodies need to stay healthy. This vitamin has many functions, including:

  • Keeping bones strong:

 Having healthy bones protects you from various conditions, including rickets. Rickets is a disorder that causes children to have bones that are weak and soft. It is caused by a lack of vitamin D in the body. You need vitamin D so that calcium and phosphorus can be used to build bones. In adults, having soft bones is a condition called osteomalacia.

  • Absorbing calcium:

 Vitamin D, along with calcium, helps build bones and keep bones strong and healthy. Weak bones can lead to osteoporosis, the loss of bone density, which can lead to fractures. Vitamin D, once either taken orally or from sunshine exposure is then converted to an active form of the vitamin. It is that active form that promotes optimal absorption of calcium from your diet.

  • Working with parathyroid glands:

 The parathyroid glands work minute to minute to balance the calcium in the blood by communicating with the kidneys, gut and skeleton. When there is sufficient calcium in the diet and sufficient active Vitamin D, dietary calcium is absorbed and put to good use throughout the body. If calcium intake is insufficient, or vitamin D is low, the parathyroid glands will ‘borrow’ calcium from the skeleton in order to keep the blood calcium in the normal range.

sources of vitamin D?
You can get vitamin D in a variety of ways. These can include:

Being exposed to the sun. About 15-20 minutes three days per week is usually sufficient.

  • Through the foods you eat.
  • Through nutritional supplements.


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