Increasing vitamin D intake may help you shed some extra lbs, according to findings presented at the Endocrine Society's 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. Past studies have linked vitamin D deficiency and obesity (thought it's not clear if inadequate vitamin D causes obesity or the other way around), but this new research followed 38 overweight men and women on a calorie-restricted diet for 11 weeks, and showed that increasing vitamin D intakes during a calorie-restricted diet may improve weight loss. Higher baseline vitamin D levels were also linked to increased loss of abdominal fat. Another recent study that appeared in April's issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that supplementing with vitamin D may also improve cardiovascular health during weight loss.