Vitamin D Since the discovery of Vitamin D in the early twentieth century, much has been learned of its complex

interrelationships with calcium metabolism in the body. Calcium is essential for multiple actions in the body - one of the most significant of which is the normal mineralization of bone. Vitamin D helps maintain the required balance of calcium that is essential to healthy tissue. Vitamin D deficiency has been demonstrated to prevent proper bone mineralization, becoming manifest as rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults. To combat such disorders, recommendations such as the fortification of milk with Vitamin D have been instituted. More recently, with the rise of obesity in many of the world's populations, this research has been extended to focus on the relationship of Vitamin D with obesity. Two such studies are summarized. One study was performed in Spain in 2008 and demonstrated a linkage between Vitamin D deficiency and obesity. In these young female adults, Vitamin D deficiency was determined by serum Vitamin D levels and obesity was assessed by BMI. The study demonstrated that not only is Vitamin D deficiency prevalent in young obese women but also that low serum Vitamin D levels are associated with obesity and waist circumference - the latter being a good marker for abdominal adiposity. Furthermore, the study demonstrated that this increase risk of Vitamin D deficiency in obese women is linked to excess adiposity rather than due to insufficient intake of the vitamin. The other study was performed in Tennessee in 2005. This study used epidemiological data and clinical trials to demonstrate a linkage between the moderate consumption of dairy products and body fat loss. This linkage is based on the intricate relationship among calcium, Vitamin D, and fat metabolism in adipocytes in the body. An increase in dietary calcium resulted in a decrease in serum Vitamin D levels which was associated with an increase in body fat loss. Furthermore, the study

demonstrated that dairy sources of calcium were most effective in this association - most likely due to the presence of the non-mineral constituents of the dairy products. These two studies emphasize the concern about the increase in the prevalence of obesity in the world's populations. The first study demonstrates the presence of a linkage between Vitamin D deficiency and adiposity in one obese population. The second study complements the first study by demonstrating the potential of dairy product consumption to simultaneously promote Vitamin D and calcium balance as well as fat loss and weight management. A future supplementary study that combines these two studies may focus on the direct effects of such dietary recommendations as dairy product consumption on the weight management of a specific population group such as the young obese female college students used in the Spanish study.