Can Vitamin D Help Reduce Stress Fractures?

The other day, I received a call from a concerned parent whose daughter was having leg pain that was eluding proper diagnosis. The mother said that approximately a month ago, her daughter's soccer coach had significantly increased the girls' training program.

In researching the possible causes of the chronic injury, I came across an interesting article discussing stress fractures and vitamin D in young girls.

As a little background, over the past 20 years the number of children playing organized sports has increased. Both the hours played and the intensity of the activity per week has also gone up. Following that trend, there has been a marked increase in the number of athletic injuries especially stress fractures.  

Stress fractures are cracks that develop in the bone as the result of excess strain. They occur because the pressures applied to the bone are greater than the bone's strength. A common term used in describing stress fractures is that result from overuse syndrome.

Unlike a break that can be directly connected to a single, traumatic event, stress fractures develop because of repeated overuse resulting in an injured body part. Many stress fractures can be avoided by gradually changing the training times and amounts rather than sharply increasing it over a shorter period of time.

The interesting part about the study was that higher vitamin D levels were able to reduce the number of stress fracture in younger women by 50 percent. Vitamin D levels are known to be very important in preventing and managing osteoporosis in adults but this study shows an important connection to bone strength in younger girls as well.

Click here to read more about the importance of Vitamin D in stress fracture prevention.