Keeping the body in top form basically comes down to three basic things: a healthy diet, regular exercise, and plenty of rest. Among the three, food remains the most important, providing the body with the essential nutrients it needs to fuel, repair, and maintain itself. However, not everything we need for our body to function comes from the food that we eat.
Vitamin D, a fat-soluble vitamin, is a kind of vitamin that is present only in a handful of foods and can only be taken through enriched sources or dietary supplements. This is because vitamin D is naturally produced by our bodies through a process that is triggered by the sun’s ultraviolet rays. It is because of this that vitamin D is also called the “sunshine vitamin.”
But what is it for?
Vitamin D plays a huge role in the absorption of calcium from food as well as in the maintenance of normal calcium and phosphorous levels in the blood. It is through this that vitamin D plays an essential role in bone formation, growth and repair, making our skeletons stronger and more rigid. Without enough vitamin D, our bones become brittle and deformed, as in the case of rickets in children, and osteomalacia, or the softening of the bones in adults.
The sunshine vitamin has many other benefits, so read on and learn about the other good things Vitamin D does for the body.
1. Promotes Fat Loss
Obese and overweight patients have been found to have low levels of vitamin D in their blood. Because of their high body mass index (BMI), or height-to-weight- ratio, obese individuals need more of the vitamin in order for their vitamin D blood levels to normalize.
Studies have shown that supplementation with high dose vitamin D not only decreased body fat mass in obese individuals, but also improved symptoms of metabolic syndrome such as high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol, especially those in postmenopausal women.
