Vitamin D can help older people maintain health

Vitamin D is an important nutrient for humans. It helps our body absorb calcium and turns calcium into bones and teeth. A special feature of this nutrient is that most of the vitamin D that we need is produced by our body through sun exposure. For most people, just letting the sun shine on their arms and hands for only 15 minutes is enough. However, the older you are, the more vitamin D you produce when exposed to the sun.

Denise Houston - a nutrition researcher currently teaching at Wake Forest Medical School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She said a deficiency of vitamin D may make physical decline faster in older people.

She said: 'There have been a few other studies examining this issue and have found an association between the amount of vitamin D in the blood and the ability to be physically active and muscular.'

Foods high in Vitamin D
(Photo: medicineworld.org)

Ms. Houston used data from a large-scale study of about 1,000 adults over age 65 who were conducted in Italy to compare the physical performance of participants in the study with the amount of vitamin D in their blood. In general, older people have lower levels of vitamin D, she said.'We have found differences in physical activity endurance, including problems such as walking speed, standing on chairs, and tests for balancing, as well as grip, a predictive sign of future impotence and death. '

Houston says even taking into account other factors that may affect human health, these data still show the important role of vitamin D in movement and strength in older people. . She explained: 'We tried to control other variables that could affect impotence and physical function, including age, or physical activity, body mass index, kidney function, It actually converts the amount of vitamin D we get from food and sunlight into the form of activity that our bodies use. And we still see an association between vitamin D levels and physical function and strength. '

Houston noted that there is very little supply of vitamin D in food. Typically, vitamin D is found in milk fortified with nutrients and other foods such as oily fish . Therefore, if the elderly do not eat enough vitamin D and do not make vitamin D from the sun, their health is vulnerable. Houston's study was published in the journal Medical Sciences.

Linh Anh