Sorry Ladies, Vitamin D Won’t Strengthen Bones

Bad news for post-menopausal women who are worried about osteoporosis: vitamin D supplements won’t help. We know that because researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison divided a group of 230 vitamin-D deficient postmenopausal women into three smaller groupings. HealthDay reports that for one year, one group was given 50,000 IUs of vitamin D twice a month; one was given 800 IUs of vitamin D daily, and one was given a dummy pill. Ready? The envelope please….By year’s end, the no-dose group saw their calcium absorption rate drop by a little more than 1 percent, while the low-dose groups experienced a dip of about 2 percent. The high-dose group saw their rate climb by 1 percent. Yes, it sounds good, but researchers were unimpressed, because despite the differences, the high-dose group showed no advantage over either the low-dose or no-dose group with respect to spine health, total bone mineral density, overall muscle mass or physical mobility (such as being able to move from a sitting to a standing position).