Without this vitamin variety, humans face deficiencies that cause a range of problems, like fatigue, nerve damage, heart disorders, or diseases like rickets and scurvy.
With both rickets and osteomalacia, symptoms include diffuse bone and joint pain, proximal muscle weakness, bone fragility, and increased risk of fractures with minimal trauma.
For example, rickets or osteomalacia can occur in chronic liver disease, due to the liver's inability to turn inactive vitamin D into 25-hydroxy-vitamin D.
Meanwhile, more than 800,000 patients were admitted to hospital with malnutrition and nutritional deficiencies last year, with doctors even seeing cases of scurvy and rickets.
For osteomalacia and rickets, the key symptoms are diffuse bone and joint pain, proximal muscle weakness, bone fragility, and increased risk of fractures with minimal trauma.