14 DAY TRIAL // Researchers have long known that vitamin D deficiency keeps the human body from creating new bone mass. Turns out people whose bodies don't get enough vitamin D also risk losing the bones that they have already grown.
Specialists writing in the journal Science Translational Medicine claim that vitamin D deficiency accelerates bone aging, meaning that the skeleton can stop being healthy and strong even before an individual reaches old age.
“The assumption has been that the main problem with vitamin D deficiency is reduced mineralization for the creation of new bone mass, but we’ve shown that low levels of vitamin D also induces premature aging of existing bone,” researcher Robert Ritchie says, as cited on the official website for the University of Berkeley.
The scientists explain that the human body uses this so-called sunshine vitamin to absorb calcium.
Whenever it does not get enough of it, it starts “chewing” on existing bones in order to keep normal calcium blood levels.
In time, this phenomenon leads to a softening of the bones.