How nutrition relates to bone health Research Paper

How nutrition relates to bone health - Research Paper Example The following analysis will help the reader to understand the key building blocks that are required by the body in order to perform and maintain a healthy skeletal system. Firstly, and most obviously, calcium as well as vitamin K and vitamin D are the most basic and important building blocks of proper bone strength and nutrition. Although calcium is what is primarily focused upon with regards to maintaining proper bone density and health, both vitamin K and vitamin D help to regulate the levels of calcium in the blood stream as well as to encourage and discourage the way that this calcium is synthesized within the bone marrow itself (Marian 440). Although this vitamin and nutrient are often mentioned in the same breath with bone health and nutrition, few individuals understand the processes that each of these play in proper bone health. Firstly, vitamin D is converted to what is known as calcidiol in the liver. Once this conversion has taken place, the calcidiol is then pumped through the blood stream with the sole intent of seeking to regulate the levels of calcium and phosphate that exist in the blood stream. Calcidiol acts in this way as a hormone to regulate levels of compounds that exist throughout the body (Price 143). By acting in this regulatory fashion, the body is able to make appropriate use of the calcium and phosphate levels that are in the blood stream in order to properly build strong bones. In the same way, vitamin K helps to control the level of calcium binding that takes place within the bone structure. Likewise, in addition to calcium and vitamin K, D, the body needs to maintain adequate levels of magnesium; the second most plentiful mineral, after calcium, in the skeleton. Magnesium has a host of applications with respect to bone health; however, for the purposes of this brief analysis it can understood to have a direct and profoundly important effect on the boney matrix that helps to give bones their density and