Fig. 3

Effects of dietary vitamin D supplementation on apparent bone material properties in male and female Wistar rats. Animals were assigned to one of three dietary groups: 0 IU/kg (Group I), 1000 IU/kg (Group II), or 5000 IU/kg (Group III) of vitamin D₃ (n = 6 per sex per group): (a) yield strain, (b) yield stress, (c) breaking strain, (d) breaking stress, and (e) Young’s modulus. Data are presented as mean ± SEM. Statistical analyses were conducted in GraphPad Prism (version 10.5.0) using two-way ANOVA to assess the effects of vitamin D dose, sex, and their interaction. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. Capital letters indicate significant differences between dietary doses within the sex groups; brackets denote significant differences between sexes; and asterisks (*) represent p-values (*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001).