Vitamins play many very important roles in our body. Simply put, without them our lives would be very difficult or even impossible. Vitamins are involved in virtually every biological process that takes place in our body: they strengthen our bones, strengthen the immune system, facilitate blood circulation, digestion, and so on.
Although the importance of vitamins has long been understood in one way or another, we still do not properly appreciate their need. The reason for this is partly because scientists have not fully studied the biological mechanisms of many vitamins. Also, other factors necessary for health and their lack are more visible. Vitamins, so to speak, work behind the scenes.
What is vitamin D and what is it important for bones?
Vitamin D is actually a fat-soluble steroid hormone that causes the expression of about 1000 different genes in the human body. Vitamin D is unique in that it is mainly synthesized in our skin with the help of ultraviolet radiation, and the main source of this radiation, in turn, is the sun.
Unlike many other vitamins, it is more or less difficult to get the required dose of vitamin D from food. In large quantities, it is found only in fish species and in fungi that spend a long time in the sun.
Like humans, fungi can synthesize vitamin D with the help of ultraviolet radiation. It should also be noted that vitamin D plays a very important role in the circulation of other vitamins and calcium, as the absorption of the latter in the liver and other organs is impossible without vitamin D.
In other words, a lack of vitamin D often leads to a lack of calcium, a lack of calcium leads to a reduction in the addition of other minerals, vitamins, and compounds necessary for health, and so on. That is, vitamin D is one of the most important links in the chain of biological processes, the breakdown of which leads to negative chain reactions.
It is therefore not surprising that a lack of vitamin D often leads to health problems. For example, rickettsial disease and osteomalacia, common in the developing world, are often a serious problem for children and adults.
Like a rickettsial disease, the main feature of osteomalacia is the so-called soft bones. Patients with osteomalacia have difficulty walking, have constant pain in bones and muscles, bones break easily, and so on.