What is Vitamin D3?
Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin that you can find in some foods, supplements and also can be made by your body when your skin is exposed to sunlight. There are two different types of vitamin D in your body: vitamin D2 and vitamin D3. Both of them are naturally occurring, but vitamin D3 is the form of vitamin D that your body can produce.
Vitamin D2 and D3 are both pretty similar, studies show that they are both equally effective in boosting your vitamin D levels. You are recommended to have around 600 IU of vitamin D daily and if you are over 70 years old, you would need around 800 IU daily.
If you stay indoors all the time (whether it be playing league of legends or working on your homework), you might actually be vitamin D deficient! Some of the common symptoms are cognitive impairment, bone pain, muscle weakness and even an increased risk of death from heart disease.
You can easily fix your vitamin D deficiency through diet or supplements. You can find vitamin D in some of these foods:
Tuna
Egg yolk
Shrimp
Fortified milk
Fortified yogurt
Fortified orange juice
Salmon
Cod liver oil
Beef liver
What Are the Benefits of Taking Vitamin D?
Vitamin D has many important functions. One of the most important is the regulation of how phosphorus and calcium is absorbed and making sure your immune system is functioning properly. In fact, many of your organs in your body have receptors for vitamin D, signalling the importance of vitamin D for you.
Since vitamin D is involved with how calcium and phosphorus is absorbed, it is a necessary vitamin for building and making sure your bones stay strong. Calcium and vitamin D work together to protect your bones. Without enough of them, your bones will weaken and might become easily fractured. In addition, you might see skeletal deformities in children between 6 to 24 months old.
A meta analysis that included more than 42,000 people that are 65+ years old found that those who had higher intake of vitamin D supplements (around 500 to 800 IU a day) had reduced hip and non-spine fractures by around 20%.
There has been many research done suggesting that a good level of vitamin D will be able to keep your immune system strong and might even protect you from respiratory diseases such as the flu or the coronavirus.
Vitamin D has both immunoregulatory and anti-inflammatory properties and therefore it is important for the activation of your immune system. It enhances the function of your immune cells and protects your body against viruses. Therefore, those who have low vitamin D are more likely to be vulnerable to diseases, infections and immune disorders.
Early research has also suggested that there might be a link between vitamin D deficiency and obesity. A study states that while being deficient in vitamin D does not cause obesity, there seems to be a link between the two. They state that the excess fat, muscle mass and liver might be preventing vitamin D from being absorbed in your body.
There is currently a hypothesis that vitamin D might have a role in suppressing the parathyroid hormone, this is a hormone that promotes fat buildup in your adipose tissue.
Conclusion
Did you know? A study done in 2011 has stated that up to 42% of Americans might have inadequate amounts of vitamin D. Not getting enough vitamin D poses quite a lot of health concerns. Ideally, you should try to go out and enjoy the sun (don’t forget to put some sunscreen to prevent premature aging). But if you can’t go outdoors, you should either eat foods high in vitamin D or try to take some vitamin D supplements.
Vitamin D is necessary for your body to function optimal. It may decrease your chance of getting certain diseases, improve your bones and might even help with your weight. If you think you might be deficient in vitamin D, you should definitely go to a healthcare professional and ask for a blood test and consider increasing your vitamin D intake!