Vitamin D: Calcium's Best Friend

WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 2006

As many as 36 percent of healthy young adults have been found to have low levels of vitamin D, putting them at risk of osteoporosis, a leading expert says.

Michael Holick, Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine is a leading investigator of the functions of vitamin D. His research and findings suggest that inadequate vitamin D, in addition to causing rickets, prevents children from attaining their genetically programmed peak bone mass; contributes to and exacerbates osteoporosis in adults; and causes the often painful bone disease osteomalacia.

Prof Holick said that adequate vitamin D was also important for proper muscle functioning, and may help prevent diabetes mellitus and hypertension.

Low levels of vitamin D were reported in approximately 36 percent of otherwise healthy young adults and up to 57 percent of general medicine inpatients in the US, and in even higher percentages in Europe. Recent data also showed a high level of vitamin D inadequacy among elderly patients and those with osteoporosis.

Factors such as low sunlight exposure and diets low in vitamin D contributed to this situation, Prof Holick said.

He concluded that supplemental doses of vitamin D and sensible sun exposure could prevent deficiency in most of the general population.