What are your fitness goals for this New Year?

Do you want to build more muscle?

Are you a dancer trying to perfect a routine?

Maybe you simply want to support the health of your bones without a specific goal in mind.

Regardless of what you want to accomplish, calcium and vitamin D are two essential nutrients that must be a part of your daily diet. If you are someone who supplements with just one of these nutrients, then you’re not maximizing the potential benefits. When you take vitamin D with calcium, you tap into a number of health and fitness benefits. Here are the top 4 reasons why it’s important to supplement vitamin D and calcium together.

4. You’ll Absorb Both Better

One of the biggest problems that supplement users have involves absorption of the nutrient. Isolating certain minerals or vitamins may increase or decrease the absorption rate of that nutrient. When you want to ensure you’re getting your money’s worth of vitamin D and calcium, it’s best to take them together. Studies show that each nutrient supports the absorption of the other. This is especially important for athletes as high protein and high sodium diets impact calcium absorption.

3. You’ll Be Supporting Stronger Bone Health

You’ve heard it time and time again: you need calcium for stronger bones. Well, that’s only half the story. You also should be getting plenty of vitamin D as well. Vitamin D plays an important role in bone health as it is a vital nutrient to support proper hormone health. For example, healthy growth hormone levels support repair, recovery, and strengthening. As we talked above in point number 4, vitamin D boosts the absorption of calcium, a bone supporting nutrient. Take these two together to boost your bone health.

2. You’ll Alleviate Inflammation

Inflammation is the body’s way of fighting illness but it’s also been connected to several notorious diseases such as cancer and diabetes. The quest to fight against disease causing inflammation is well underway, promoting researchers to use specific nutrients. Vitamin D and calcium are two nutrients that may be able to help you alleviate inflammation. New studies recommend vitamin D and calcium as a safe and natural way to reduce inflammation markers in the body.

1. May Improve Your Overall Cardiovascular Health

Cardiovascular health is one of the most important factors that you must keep an eye on to ensure longevity. This includes having healthy blood pressure, heart rate, cholesterol levels, etc. To keep these levels healthy, you should be participating in a regular exercise program along with eating a well-balanced diet, focusing on natural produce. One way to supplement your cardiovascular health is to get more calcium and vitamin D in your diet. New studies recommend ensuring you are getting in plenty of calcium and vitamin D through whole foods, and supplementation when needed, as these nutrients may support your cardiovascular health.

Tell Us What You Think!

Do you take vitamin D and calcium?

What benefits have you noticed?

Let us know in the comments below!

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Bone Health and Osteoporosis: A Report of the Surgeon General. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Surgeon General; 2004.

The National Institutes of Health Osteoporosis and Related Bone Diseases. "Calcium and Vitamin D: Important at Every Age." National Institutes of Health. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1 May 2015. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

Meg Mangin, Rebecca Sinha, and Kelly Fincher. Inflammation and vitamin D: the infection connection. Inflamm Res. 2014; 63(10): 803–819.

Bussière FI, Gueux E, Rock E, Mazur A, Rayssiguier Y. Protective effect of calcium deficiency on the inflammatory response in magnesium-deficient rats. Eur J Nutr. 2002 Oct;41(5):197-202.

Asemi Z, Karamali M, Esmaillzadeh A. Effects of calcium-vitamin D co-supplementation on glycaemic control, inflammation and oxidative stress in gestational diabetes: a randomised placebo-controlled trial. Diabetologia. 2014 Sep;57(9):1798-806. doi: 10.1007/s00125-014-3293-x. Epub 2014 Jun 25.