Symptoms And Health Risks Of Vitamin D Deficiency
Symptoms of bone pain and muscle weakness can mean you have a vitamin D deficiency. Yet, even without symptoms, too little vitamin D can pose health risks. Low blood levels of the vitamin have been associated with the following: Increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease
Cognitive impairment in older adults
Severe asthma in children
Cancer Research suggests that vitamin D could play a role in the prevention and treatment of a number of different conditions, including type1 and type 2 diabetes, hypertension, glucose intolerance, and multiple sclerosi.
What Is Vitamin D?
Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that the body produces when the skin gets exposed to sunlight. It is present in a small number of foods, including fortified products. When vitamin D enters the body, it is not in an active form.
How Much Is A Deficiency?
However, in a 2019 study , 2,423 people at risk of type 2 diabetes took either a vitamin D supplement of 4,000 international units (IU) a day or a placebo. Vitamin D levels increased in those who took the supplement. However, taking the supplement did not appear to reduce the risk of diabetes developing.
Diseases & Conditions
You may have recently found out that you are deficient or know someone who is. It’s shocking for most people when they have never had a problem before and believe nothing has changed to make it a problem now. So it’s essential that you provide vitamins for your body by food and/or supplements.
There are two forms of vitamin D: D2 and D3. Structurally, these two are not the same. Many believe that vitamin D should be classified as a hormone, with some calling it the forgotten neurosteroid.
The health consequences of being deficient go far beyond rickets and what occurs with any other vitamin. The real dangers of excessive exposure to the sun and skin cancer have been greatly publicized and resulted in people covering up and using sunscreen when in the sun. As a result, vitamin D levels began dropping without most health care professionals realizing it.
These include skeletal diseases like osteoporosis, certain cancers, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune diseases, infections, inflammatory bowel diseases, psychological disorders, cognitive disorders, obesity, and or mortality.
Natural Sources Of Vitamin D
There are very few food sources of vitamin D. Natural food sources of vitamin D include oily fish, red meat, liver, and egg yolks. However, these foods contain very low amounts of vitamin D and are not sufficient for maintaining health and preventing deficiency on their own.
Pre-vitamin D3 is converted to vitamin D3 in the skin and transferred to the blood stream over the course of several days. After arriving in the liver, vitamin D requires two metabolic conversions to become calcitriol, the active form of vitamin D. Finally, calcitriol binds to vitamin D receptors in almost every cell throughout the body.