Vitamin D: getting it right

Step by step

1. 1

   Step 1: Understand what it is for

   Vitamin D behaves more like a hormone than a vitamin, and its clearest job is helping your gut absorb calcium, which is the raw material bone is built from. Muscle responds to it too. That is worth knowing before deciding anything, because it explains both why it matters and why it cannot work alone.

   Learn more: Vitamin D: what it does, and what it does not
2. 2

   Step 2: Let food and daylight do their part

   Your skin makes Vitamin D from sunlight, and some comes from food and fortified products, including many soy milks. Ordinary daylight is enough; deliberately sitting out to burn is not a sensible way to go about it, and it carries its own risk.

   Learn more: Nutrition basics
3. 3

   Step 3: Do not expect it to replace the work

   This is where most people go wrong. Vitamin D is not a muscle builder, and it is not a substitute for exercise, which remains the strongest signal you can send to both muscle and bone. A perfectly normal Vitamin D result does not mean your bones are fine. More is not better either: the goal is having enough, not reaching the highest number you can.

   Learn more: Bone health after menopause
4. 4

   Step 4: Let your doctor decide about testing and supplements

   Whether you need a blood test, and whether you need a supplement and at what dose, depends on your own circumstances, and those are questions for your doctor rather than for a website or a shop shelf. Take this page as background for that conversation, not as a substitute for it.

   Learn more: Muscle strength and ageing

All topics in this guide

• Vitamin D: what it does, and what it does not
• Bone health after menopause
• Nutrition basics
• Muscle strength and ageing

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