Even though your body produces vitamin D when you’re exposed to the sun, a 2012 article in Aging and Disease highlights how older adults tend to spend less time in the sun and that their skin has a harder time synthesizing this vitamin. Older adults often begin to have problems with walking partly as a result of a vitamin D deficiency. Not only does vitamin D play a role in protecting older adults from infection and improving the function of blood vessels, but low levels of vitamin D are also linked to conditions such as metabolic syndrome, dementia, and some cancers.
Drinking a glass of milk every day can reduce your risk of conditions such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, obesity, and osteoporosis, according to a 2021 review in Nutrition and Metabolism. However, milk might be slightly linked to higher incidences of prostate cancer and Parkinson’s. Even if you’re in your 30s, you might want to start regularly drinking milk to keep your strength later in life. A 2022 study in the British Journal of Nutrition found that you can reduce your risk of having low muscle strength at age 69 if you drink between ¼ and ½ cup of milk every day, and drinking at least a cup of milk every day is linked to more strength in men in midlife.