Vitamin D offers crucial benefits, such as supporting strong, healthy bones and enabling calcium absorption—but many people don’t get enough of it.1 Supplements can help fill the gap, but is there a best time to take vitamin D for optimal absorption? According to experts, what you pair vitamin D with matters more than timing.

 

The Best Time to Take Vitamin D For Absorption

There’s no evidence that vitamin D is absorbed better at certain times of the day, according to Victoria Maizes, MD, founding executive director of the Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona.

Rather than timing, what’s more important is taking vitamin D with a meal that contains fat, she said. That’s because vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin, meaning it needs fat to dissolve and be stored in tissue.1

While taking vitamin D with the largest meal of the day—the one likely to contain the most fat—is a good idea, pairing it with any amount of fat can help with absorption, said Jen Bianchini, MS, RD, IFNCP, functional nutritionist and founder at Body to Soul Health.

The type of fat you pair the supplement with doesn’t appear to matter—one study found no difference in vitamin D absorption when supplements were taken with both monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.2 Foods such as nuts, avocados, fish, or olive oil could all be good choices.

 

Other Factors to Consider

 

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