In people who exercise regularly, a vitamin D deficiency is thought to increase the risk of a stress fracture.
Vitamin D would be the best ally of athletes. This is what suggests a study published in the journal Journal of Foot and Ankle Surgery, which comes back to the importance of avoiding deficiencies, for people who practice regular physical activity.
The latter are indeed more often subject to fatigue fractures. These injuries are the result of intense athletic effort, which subjected the bones to sustained and repeated stress. The researchers wanted to know if taking vitamin D could have a protective effect.
To do this, they recruited 124 participants with fatigue fractures, objectified by X-rays and MRI scans.The medical records over three years, from 2011 and 2014, were analyzed by the researchers.
25 (OH) D concentration
Three months after the diagnosis, the blood level of vitamin D was measured in 53 participants. According to Inserm, in France, an individual suffers from deficiencies if the concentration is less than 20 ng / ml. In the United States, health authorities recommend a concentration between 40 ng / ml and 80 ng / ml.
Using the American recommendations as a reference, the researchers indicate that 80% of these 53 patients suffered from deficiencies. According to them, these results suggest that a majority of people prone to fatigue fractures, followers of intense sports activities, have a vitamin D intake that is too low.
“With this work, we wanted to encourage discussion between physicians and patients about the benefits of vitamin D for very active individuals,” says John R Miller, lead author of the study.
The latter is nevertheless aware of the limits of his work. The sample of people tested remains small, and it is now necessary to conduct larger prospective studies to determine whether vitamin D supplementation reduces the risk of injury.
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