What role does vitamin D play in absorption?
Vitamin D is essential for the absorption of calcium. The amount of vitamin D required is one of the most important, still open research questions in the field of nutrition today. It’s now becoming clear from studies in a variety of laboratories that the body probably utilizes as much as 4000 International Units of vitamin D per day. Currently, the recommended daily intakes of vitamin D are only one-tenth of that, about 400 International Units per day. And that’s what you’re likely to get in a multivitamin tablet or capsule. We probably need a lot more than we’re getting by mouth, though most of our requirement is met when our skin is exposed to the sun when we go outdoors. That’s because vitamin D precursors produced in the skin are acted on by the sun’s ultraviolet rays to make vitamin D. What can inhibit calcium supplement absorption? If you take calcium supplements with food, not very much. Some foods such as spinach contain substances that block calcium absorption, but they block
