ninevirtues | kablooey--- brain full of presentation

Vitamin d deficiency in elderly people leads to muscle weakness, diffuse muscle pain, and reduced function.

How do we know this? Well, D is produced by your skin, when you go out in the sun, and it's in your diet. But once you get older, you don't eat as much, and you don't absorb as much of what you eat, and your skin doesn't make D as efficiently.

How do we study the effects of D deficiency? We find the most deficient people on the planet.... elderly arab women who wear burkas and live in Denmark where there's no sun.

Yeah, they're deficient all right. (Read: Weak.) When you give them a nice painful intramuscular shot of D and some supplemental calcium, they perk right up. After they stop cussing you out for the shot, that is.

The moral of the story, ladies and gentlemen: After age 50, it's wise to take a combined D/calcium supplement of 800 IU vitamin D + 1200 mg elemental calcium. It staves off.... weakness, pain, and difficulty climbing stairs.

Back to practicing the damn presentation now.