As we all know, vitamin D is absolutely essential for maintaining good bone health. Vitamin D deficiency is a serious concern in parts of the world where individuals don’t get enough sunlight, have dark-skin, or are obese/overweight. Individuals who don’t get atleast 15 minutes under the sun tend to have lower levels of vitamin D in their bodies. Because of vitamin D deficiency, doctors are seeing a resurgence of rickets, a bone-weakening disease.

Apart from playing an important role in maintaining bone health, vitamin D deficiency also increases the risk of a number of chronic diseases. Some of the diseases that are linked to the deficiency of vitamin D include osteoporosis, heart disease, some type of cancers, multiple sclerosis, tuberculosis and even flu. Recent research experiment carried out by Wei Zhu and colleagues suggests that vitamin D3 and calcium supplementation also helps fat loss in overweight and obese college students with very-low calcium consumption.

Previous observational studies have revealed that calcium intake is inversely related to body weight, dyslipidemia,  type-2 diabetes and hypertension. Previous experiments (randomized and controlled trials), testing the effects of calcium supplementation, with or without vitamin D, have yielded controversial results.

For this experiment, 53 college students were selected. Participants selected were generally healthy, obese or overweight, free from coronary heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia. All individuals were randomly assigned to either the calcium+vitaminD group or control group.

Both groups received 500 kcal/d of caloric deficit, and only the calcium+vitaminD group  members received 600 mg of calcium carbonate plus 125 IU vitamin D3 as a dose of one tablet taken daily after breakfast. Experiment lasted for 12 weeks.

After the analysis, it was observed that calcium and vitamin D supplementation for 12 weeks facilitated fat loss in very-low calcium consumers independent of energy restriction. Calcium intake has beneficial effects on weight management. Results of this experiment once again show the importance of vitamins and mineral on our health. It is suggested that you discuss your situation with your family doctor before starting any supplementation.

References:

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/vitamin-d/

Zhu, Wei, Donglian Cai, Ying Wang, Ning Lin, Qingqing Hu, Yang Qi, Shuangshuang Ma, and Sidath Amarasekara. “Calcium plus Vitamin D3 Supplementation Facilitated Fat Loss in Overweight and Obese College Students with Very-low Calcium Consumption: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” Nutrition Journal 12.8 (2013)