How are your vitamin D levels? With the recent warm weather, you might assume you’re A-OK. You know your skin makes vitamin D when it’s exposed to sunlight. You’ve enjoyed plenty of time in the sunshine, so it’s job done, right? No chance of a vitamin D deficiency at this time of year. But unfortunately, that’s simply not the case. While daily sun exposure might be enough to stimulate enough vitamin D production for some people, for many others it’s not.
Why? Well for one thing, getting older affects the skin’s ability to produce vitamin D3. The skin of a person in their 70s makes roughly 25 percent of the vitamin D3 produced by a person in their 20s! And age isn’t the only factor you need to consider. Your skin pigmentation, how much sunscreen you wear, the amount of skin you expose, and where you live in the world can also have a big impact. With this in mind, it’s not surprising that a massive 1 in 6 of the UK are believed to have vitamin D deficiency.
What is vitamin D and what do you need it for?
Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin essential for optimum immune health, maintaining calcium balance and healthy, strong bones and teeth, blood pressure regulation, and cell growth. It also plays a key role in how well your brain works. Studies have shown people with higher levels of vitamin D have better cognitive function. And last year, new research was released suggesting that getting enough vitamin D could even prevent Alzheimer’s disease from developing!
One thing’s for sure, if you have a vitamin D deficiency, you’re putting yourself at risk of developing all sorts of illnesses. From short-lived viruses and bugs, due to poor immune function. To more serious diseases like osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, and even cancer. The impact of having low vitamin D levels can be far-reaching. So how do you know if you’re getting enough?
What are the symptoms of vitamin D deficiency?
If you’re lacking in vitamin D, aching bones and sore muscles can be one of the most common signs. Especially if it goes hand in hand with tiredness and fatigue. Vitamin D deficiency can affect your mood too, because without enough, your brain might not produce ‘happy hormone’ serotonin as efficiently.
Always seem to have some kind of bug or cold? Running low on vitamin D can also slow down your immune system. And healing wounds might also take time. This is because you need D for both cell growth to produce enough cathelicidin. A protein with antimicrobial properties that your body makes to fend off the pesky bacteria that can delay the healing process.
You don’t want to have to live with any of these symptoms, so let’s find out the best ways to top up your levels:
The best supplements to help you combat vitamin D deficiency:
In an ideal world, we’d have just the right amount of sun exposure each day. Our skin would do its thing and use the ultraviolet rays to convert a precursor molecule (the snappily named 7-dehydrocholesterol) into vitamin D3 and we’d all feel great. But what with the wonky weather (who else remembers the almost constant rain in spring?), working longer days indoors, more of us wearing high-factor sunscreen, and getting older, a bit of sunshine just doesn’t provide the right amount of D for a lot of us.
You could try adding some vitamin D-rich foods to your diet (more on this later), but by far the easiest and most reliable way to boost your levels is by taking a vitamin D supplement. There are two types of Vitamin D: D2 and D3. Studies have repeatedly shown that D3 is superior at raising the levels of vitamin D in the body. It’s also better at improving your calcium levels, essential for good bone health. D3 is the main ingredient in our Vitamin D3/K2 Patch. Vitamin D3 combined with K2 offers a double whammy of calcium absorption and helps calcium to reach your bones. Making this the ideal supplement if bone health is high on your list of vitamin D deficiency concerns.
Why are oral supplements not always the best way to prevent vitamin D deficiency?
If you’ve been taking vitamin D supplements for a while, but your levels just won’t budge, it could be time to think about which kind of supplement would work best for you. Taking a high oral dose of vitamin D often leads to much of the vitamin being excreted, because your body can’t utilise high concentrations of a vitamin in one go, and much of the good stuff won’t make it through the gut.
Our patches work differently, delivering the vitamin D3 transdermally, through the skin. The nutrients are drip fed into your body gradually, which bypasses the stomach and liver. This means much more vitamin D will make it into your bloodstream, your levels will rise, and you’ll be able to feel the benefit. No more vitamin D deficiency – hurrah!
Still not convinced? Click here to read about a PatchWorks customer who was low in Vit D3 for years, even though he’d tried various oral supplements. He gave our vitamin patches a go and his blood tests came back with good levels – patch power!
How can you top up your vitamin D levels naturally?
Taking a supplement is a great way to improve your D levels. But there are lots of other things you could (and should) do alongside this, to prevent vitamin D deficiency and boost your general health:
Soak up the sun:
As discussed, catching some sun doesn’t offer guaranteed protection from vitamin D deficiency, but it will contribute to your levels. The best time to do this in the UK at the moment (summer) is at midday when UV levels are at their highest. You only need 13 minutes of midday sunlight exposure. But make sure you’ve got your trunk, upper arms, and face exposed for the best results (not so easy in the park on your lunch break! )
Worried about getting too much sun and damaging your skin? The very clever people at the Norwegian Institute for Air Research have come up with this snazzy Ultraviolet Exposure Levels Calculator. It will help you to work out how much sunlight you need to give your Vitamin D status some oomph and avoid sunburn.
And don’t forget; sunshine time has other health benefits too. It has been shown to improve your mood, and will also help you sleep better. To find out more, read our sleep routine blog here.
Eat vitamin D-rich foods:
Is your diet helping you to avoid vitamin D deficiency? You are what you eat, and making sure you’re consuming foods rich in vitamin D is a great way to bump up your intake. One of the best food sources of vitamin D are oily fish, like salmon, mackerel, and sardines. It’s also abundant in egg yolks, red meat, and liver.
Veggie or vegan? Hope you like mushrooms! They are the only non-animal source of a decent amount of dietary D. Like humans, mushrooms can synthesize vitamin D when exposed to UV light. If you’re not a mushroom lover, remember that lots of foods are fortified with vitamin D, for example, breakfast cereals, plant milks and butter.
Get active:
Lastly, make sure you’re getting at least 20 – 30 minutes of exercise a day. Not only will this provide all sorts of cardiovascular and general health benefits, but it could also help to safeguard you from vitamin D deficiency. Studies have found that exercising, in particular any kind of endurance training, can significantly increase the levels of vitamin D circulating in vitamin D-deficient people. Another exercise win to add to the list!