Vitamin D plays an important role in the regulation of calcium and phosphorus absorption by the organism. It also helps keep the brain and immune system working. Researchers at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) in Brazil and University College London (UCL) in the United Kingdom have now shown that vitamin D supplementation reduces the risk of dynapenia in older people by 78%.
Dynapenia is an age-associated loss of muscle strength. It can be partially explained by muscle atrophy and is a major risk factor for physical incapacity later in life. People with dynapenia are more likely to fall, need to go to the hospital, be prematurely institutionalized, and die.
An article on the study is published in the journal Calcified Tissue International and Musculoskeletal Research. The study was supported by FAPESP.
The researchers analyzed data for 3,205 non-dynapenic individuals aged 50 and over who were followed for four years by the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), a long-term multi-cohort study that began in 2002 and has had more than 15 years of follow-up.
“ Vitamin D is known to participate in various functions of the organism. It’s a hormone and its many roles include helping to repair muscles and releasing calcium for muscle contraction kinetics. It was therefore expected to cause muscle alterations of some kind. That’s exactly what our study proved,” said Tiago da Silva Alexandre, the last author of the article. Alexandre is a professor of gerontology at UFSCar.
Bone and muscle tissue are interconnected not just mechanically and physically but also biochemically. “Endocrine disorders such as vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency can lead to loss of bone mineral density as well as a reduction in muscle mass, strength, and function,” he said.