Welcome to the Simple Steps to Improved Health Challenge Day 16 Get Enough Vitamin D
Reminder to choose 1 of the first two actions to work on this week starting today or whatever day you want the week to start on for you. See Day 1 for more information about the challenge.
How Does Getting Enough Vitamin D Improve Health
Vitamin D is needed by our bodies to stay healthy. You need vitamin D so that calcium and phosphorus can be used to build bones and keep them strong and healthy. Vitamin D helps with the intestinal absorption of calcium.
A lack of vitamin D in adults can have symptoms of muscle weakness, muscle aches, or muscle cramps, fatigue, bone pain, and mood changes or depression. In children, a severe lack of vitamin D causes rickets. Rickets results in muscle weakness, bone pain, joint informatics, and incorrect growth patterns.
In older adults, consistently low levels of vitamin D can result in low bone calcium stores Which increases the risk of fractures and lead to osteoporosis.
Research indicates that there are receptors on other organs that bind vitamin D including the heart, blood vessels, muscles, and endocrine glands. This may help with the prevention and treatment of many conditions such as type 1 and type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, glucose intolerance, and multiple sclerosis.
How to Take Action
During your annual physical have your primary care physician check your vitamin D levels especially if you are obese, have conditions that impact absorption in the intestines like celiac, or have liver or kidney disease.
These conditions impact vitamin absorption and creation making it more likely that you will be vitamin D deficient.
There are a couple of different ways to get vitamin D.
Get in the Sun
The one you are most familiar with is probably from sunlight. Vitamin D is produced when skin is exposed to sunlight. The amount produced depends on the season, time of day, where you live, and the melanin content of the skin.
It is recommended to get exposure to the sun 3 days a week for 15-20 minutes if possible. Sun exposure to the face, arms, legs, or back is sufficient to produce vitamin D. This is without sunscreen on.
If it is likely that you will be in the sun longer than 20 minutes then put your sunscreen on after 20 minutes or get your vitamin D through another source so you are not increasing your risk of skin cancer.
You might require additional sun exposure or want to supplement if you are older, have darker skin, or live in an area farther from the equator.
Foods with Vitamin D
The second way is through the foods you eat. Some fish, egg yolks, beef liver, and vitamin-fortified milk or juice are foods that provide some vitamin D.
Some fish that may contain vitamin D include swordfish, salmon, tuna, shrimp, and sardines.
Cod liver oil has one of the highest levels of vitamin D but you need to have a good source. Be careful because it also contains more than recommended amounts of vitamin A.
Consider adding some of these foods to your week.
Vitamin D Supplements
The third way is through supplements. As with cod liver oil, the source of supplements is important. Most likely you will get cod liver oil as a supplement.
There are other vitamin D supplements. The important thing is to check medical reviews to ensure that what you are purchasing is of good quality.
When shopping for supplements, always look for ones that offer the daily recommended allowance (RDA) you need for your age. For most healthy people, it’s 600 IU per day, over age 70 it’s about 800 IU. Babies should be getting smaller amounts between 200 and 400 IU through age 1.
Next check the type of vitamin D. D3 is more efficient and lasts longer in the body but D2 is sufficient. If you are deficient and take vitamin D sporadically, D3 would be a better choice.
Also check that the supplement has been tested for purity and quality by a third party, such as U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP), Informed-Choice, ConsumerLab, or another.
Supplements are not regulated in the US and can contain a lot of fillers instead of the main ingredient.
Your health care provider may have a recommendation for which brand of supplement to take especially if you show a deficiency in testing. If you have a deficiency in vitamin D, ask your health care provider for their recommended brand.
You Can Have too Much Vitamin D
Vitamin D toxicity is very rare and only from over-supplementation. You won’t get too much from the sun. It can lead to hypercalcemia causing symptoms of increased thirst and urination, poor appetite, nausea, constipation, weakness, confusion, and neurological problems such as stumbling and slurred words.
Make sure you are taking vitamin D supplements at the typical 600 or 800 IU per day or less unless your health care provider indicates you are at a severe deficiency and need a much larger dose.
Understand that a higher dose will most likely only be prescribed for a short period of time like 7-10 days.
The time may be different is if you have liver or kidney disease in which the vitamin D you take is not being synthesized into the useable form since that happens in the liver and kidneys.
Do not take higher doses without a health care provider monitoring you.
Go Do it
If you haven’t had your vitamin D tested then ask your health care provider if it should be tested during your next visit.
Determine how often you get sunlight on your skin and decide if you want to increase that a couple of times a week.
One way that I do this is by walking my dogs in the morning. I expose as much of my arms and legs as I can depending on the weather. Getting out in the sunlight in the morning also helps with the circadian rhythm and can be a grounding start to your day.
Decide if you want to get some vitamin D from food sources. Check the nutrition label to see the amounts of vitamin D in the food you want to use to get vitamin D.
Decide if supplements work best for you. Ask your health care provider which brand and dose they recommend for you. Purchase that brand and decide how frequently you want to take it.
Maybe you only want to take a supplement during the winter months. If your vitamin D levels were close to normal maybe you want to take it a couple of times a week. If deficient, maybe take it every day.
Your health care provider can give you recommendations so that you are getting the amount you need based on your test results.
If you do decide to take supplements, put a reminder on your phone so that you remember to take them.
I hope this provided good information for you to have better health. Comment or email if you are wanting to have someone helping you through your health journey.
