Help your elderly parents walk, dance and exercise with this simple, low-cost nutrient

Tuesday, August 31, 2010 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: vitamin D, elderly, health news

(NaturalNews) Researchers from Wake Forest University (WFU) in North Carolina recently completed a study on the physical health of seniors in relation to their vitamin D levels. The study revealed that seniors with the highest vitamin D levels had far better mobility and physical health than those with the lowest levels.

Presented at the American Society for Nutrition at Experimental Biology 2010, the study is just one of many recent vitamin D studies illustrating the fact that the vitamin has powerful health-promoting and disease-preventing capabilities.

Dr. Denise Houston and her colleagues at WFU evaluated over 2,700 healthy seniors from Memphis and Pittsburgh over the course of four years. The team analyzed blood levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, the precursor of vitamin D, and found that those folks with the highest levels could walk faster, move more easily, and remain better balanced, than those with the lowest levels.

A similar study conducted earlier in the year by researchers from the University of Sydney, found that elderly folks who supplement with vitamin D are less likely to fall than those who do not.

Since vitamin D plays an important role in bone health and strength, it is believed that this crucial nutrient greatly improves health and quality of life, particularly in older people.

Vitamin D works to protect the body from developing severe degenerative diseases and it also helps to prevent infections, viruses, influenza, colds and other maladies from occurring. It is truly one of the most beneficial and readily-available nutrients around, and keeping your levels high will do wonders for your health.

The best way to maintain healthy vitamin D levels is allow your skin to be exposed to natural sunlight for 15 to 30 minutes every day. Sunscreens that block the sun's UV rays will prevent your skin from absorbing vitamin D, so it is important not to use them for this purpose.

Exposure to the sun in gradually-increasing amounts will help to acclimate your skin to the sun and to avoid burns. Supplementing with natural astaxanthin, a natural skin protector and powerful antioxidant found in Hawaiian microalgae, will also help you to be able to get adequate sunlight exposure without damaging your skin.

You can purchase high-quality BioAstin astaxanthin from the NaturalNews store at the following link:
http://store.naturalnews.com/index.php?main_...

Sources for this story include:

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2010/04/27/Vi...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17699933

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews...